… might be the same as perspicacity, allowing one to see
in different directions … indifferent directions, not mattering
if back or forwards, a long way away or right up close to the eye.
I am writing on computer. My hand doesn’t flow. But the words
flow, so in that way the writing is flowing. It goes where my mind
wanders. A smattering of images, of small recognitions.
Behind my eyes, my little black cat comes walking. (I only
closed them a moment, drifting off.) Up across my lap where
I sit at my desk, as if floating smoothly from the floor ... further.
In life she would jump on the couch, traverse the surfaces
of TV table (in front of the screen, ignoring it), then low cupboard
onto coffee table, along my desk behind laptop and printer –
reaching at last the chest of drawers where she stood to gaze
through the glass of the sliding door's big window, thence at last
into her cosy cat bed high on top of her tall scratching post.
What did she see when she stared out into the yard and up
over the slats of the fence? Nothing I could ever discern; but cats,
Google tells me, have a different, more inclusive kind of vision.
She never walked across my lap as if it was a thoroughfare,
head down, focused forward. My lap and arms were refuges,
places to stay and nestle in and purr; her perspective filled, right here.
Now, does this lone visitation, already two weeks and a half since she
left the physical world, carry the simple message of moving on? If I seek
to keep her close, is my perspective distorted? In that time she has been
far, she’s been utterly gone – unlike all my other cats
who insistently, happily haunted for days, weeks, even months
after their bodies had left. (She was never like any other cats.)
It’s a good telescope I have, I decide. At any moment I can choose
to turn its intended direction, bringing her image up close, filling my view.
Or let it rest as the maker designed, seeing her small form recede …
She was a wise little thing, grounded in reality and now: what was so
in any moment. Sometimes she treated me as her mother; sometimes
her kitten who needed to be taught. She had enormous stores of calm.
Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #242: Perspective. It's attempting to be a zuihitsu, a form I'm still exploring somewhat uncertainly.
