Hymn to Her

Credit: Patricia Ann McNair

Around the parlor, her five cats
sit calm as Buddhas.  Here she

dwells, at home only at home.
Outside the tedious crumble

of brick walls, she becomes
other.  Outside her windows,

spring is becoming its scruffy
self again: I see the flicker

worrying the spruce bark
for its beetle and the black hole

at the center of the galaxy
in the same light—even though

I am not there to catch either—
as I see her, her cats, and her

universe with a sense
of the solitude of each sight.

~ Ron Houchin

Hymn to Her

Credit: Patricia Ann McNair

Around the parlor, her five cats
sit calm as Buddhas.  Here she

dwells, at home only at home.
Outside the tedious crumble

of brick walls, she becomes
other.  Outside her windows,

spring is becoming its scruffy
self again: I see the flicker

worrying the spruce bark
for its beetle and the black hole

at the center of the galaxy
in the same light—even though

I am not there to catch either—
as I see her, her cats, and her

universe with a sense
of the solitude of each sight.

~ Ron Houchin

Quote on Cats

Source: Elin Pendleton

One of the many ways in which cats are superior to humans is their mastery of time. By making no attempt to dissect years into months, days into hours and minutes into seconds, cats avoid much misery. Free from the slavery of measuring every moment, worrying whether they are late or early, young or old, or if Christmas is six weeks away, felines appreciate the present in all its multidimensional glory. They never worry about endings or beginnings. From their paradoxical viewpoint an ending is often a beginning. The joy of basking on a window ledge can seem eternal, though if measured in human time it's diminished to a paltry eighteen minutes.
If humans could program themselves to forget time, they would savor a string of pleasures and possibilities. Regrets about the past would dissolve, alongside anxieties for the future. We'd notice the color of the sky and be liberated to seize the wonder of being alive in this moment. If we could be more like cats our lives would seem eternal.

~ Helen Brown

Quote on Cats

Source: Elin Pendleton

One of the many ways in which cats are superior to humans is their mastery of time. By making no attempt to dissect years into months, days into hours and minutes into seconds, cats avoid much misery. Free from the slavery of measuring every moment, worrying whether they are late or early, young or old, or if Christmas is six weeks away, felines appreciate the present in all its multidimensional glory. They never worry about endings or beginnings. From their paradoxical viewpoint an ending is often a beginning. The joy of basking on a window ledge can seem eternal, though if measured in human time it's diminished to a paltry eighteen minutes.
If humans could program themselves to forget time, they would savor a string of pleasures and possibilities. Regrets about the past would dissolve, alongside anxieties for the future. We'd notice the color of the sky and be liberated to seize the wonder of being alive in this moment. If we could be more like cats our lives would seem eternal.

~ Helen Brown