Still, life with cat - A Life of Practice

Lilah came to us as a rescue cat. We were smitten at first sight.

She had been with us for some years before our cat communicator told us that we were meant to make her healing services available to our clients. For a period of time, I kept a lovely portrait of her in my rental space – now that I have a home office, she participates in person, once I have checked with clients about cat allergies. Contrary to Mark Twain’s caution, she can and does “improve the man” but without “deteriorating the cat.”

Still, life with cat

by Sara Eisenberg

Indifferent to the opening of a can

but never to a human arrival,

all silk, darkness, and underfoot,

Lilah appears

in answer to a summons

we two have not heard,

plants herself in doorways,

demands we remain alert and

agile in our gaining years,

and also roams the the neighborhood.

She is known to have preferred life on the street

to people who were not up to her standards,

though we never learned the precise details.

When my children were young, their friends called me

“Laurie’s Mommy” or “Jenny’s Mommy,”

now I am “Lilah’s owner” to my neighbors,

even though we all know

no one owns

a cat,

ever.

.

But oh for life as cat, a body that

joyfully, madly shoulder rolls in pursuit of tail,

bounds straight up a tree trunk to the roof,

rounds itself into any soft corner!

Still, life with cat keeps me

close to mystery,

as every day I fall anew into

her shimmering green

eyes.