Email to Catseye

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: A poem you'll like

This is one of my favorite poems. It's by Alastair Reid.

Hope you like it.

--TerryMen

Curiosity

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.

Only the curious have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats change too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

Comments

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

The cat was curious to see what death was like, of course. One day, Catseye will be curious like that too.

But not yet. Catseye will stay curious about everything else, for now. Catseye still has five lives left.

The poem is nice and Catseye likes it. Thank you, SingSongGirl.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

You're welcome, Catseye.

Five lives? Where did you leave the other four?

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

One in the sewers, one under a truck and one on the ground after falling off a roof in winter.

Catseye did not know a metal roof covered in ice was that slippery. Catseye learned.

Oh. And BigCrankyMan's cabin not long ago when the BadMetalPeople were here.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Wow. I didn't know you'd been through all that. Is that normal for a cat, to have so many deaths? They weren't really deaths were they?

What happened in Mr. Marko's cabin?

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Yes. At least Catseye thinks so. It is just how things are, that is all. And Catseye should have but did not, since Catseye had nine lives. It is good to be a cat.

And... everything got blown up and there were those FastMetalThings everywhere and BigCrankyMan went down and the kitten was in danger and then Catseye got big. Catseye does not remember everything still after that but the BadMetalMen were down or gone, because BigCrankyMan sort of scared them away after making them and Catseye think he was dead.

Except the one Catseye stopped.

The kitten was fine though. Catseye had been worried about him.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Wow. I guess you miss a lot by following orders and getting out of the way when the bad guys show up.

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

...

Catseye did not have the time to go anywhere when the BadMetalMen showed up.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

That's not really what I meant.

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Catseye does not understand then.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

That's because you think I was talking about you. I was talking about me. I'm a teenager. It's what we do.

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Catseye is a cat.

And yes, Catseye had noticed.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

I noticed that. The tail is a dead giveaway.

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

To: [SingSongGirl]
From: [Pastrami Stalker]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

The tail is Catseye's. No matter what.

Catseye will go hunt now.

[x-siryn.livejournal.com]

To: [Pastrami Stalker]
From: [SingSongGirl]
Subject: Re: A poem you'll like

Aye, that it is.

Have a good time.