The Cats Herded Me Today

The cats herded me today,

no easy task either.

I'm not resistant

but am a good bit aimless,

and by a bit I mean reluctant

to pick a direction

and head into it.

All things told,

I'm on indefinite hold

on a phantom call with my past

trying to connect to my future

if it's not been sold

and split the difference

if I may be that bold.

I could leave a message

but don't know what to say.

I could hold all day.

So, cats, show me the way.

Is there a place we can stay?

I will get out of the way

and follow today.

                                The Cats Herded Me Today Writ Large

My two cats spent 12-plus years together living in our cabin in the woods with me, above a creek with its broad forested sandy natural floodplain, and a few minutes' walk through the woods alongside and to a beautiful cove. We three would sit on our own personal little floating dock for hours.

They explored everything and everywhere. They learned how to mingle carefully and safely beside and among deer, possum, raccoons, and Red Slider turtles from the cove, sometimes while the turtles were laying eggs in a hole they'd dug in the woods. I'd sometimes see the egg-laying because I'd wondered what the cats were looking at in woods nearby.

They brought me to see tiny fawns curled up in camouflaged spots out of sight of the cabin waiting for their mothers to return, which they always did. They learned about life and themselves directly by observing days' and evenings' activities through the tall cabin windows, from our covered deck, and being out in the bountiful wild. They learned how to detect and avoid coyotes.

I learned and enjoyed hundreds of things about nature and wildlife just by following their line of sight toward things that had caught or commanded their attention. For instance, in the mornings if anything outside the cabin or even well beyond it had changed from the day before, they'd usually notice it upon first venturing outside and very quickly gravitate to it.

It could have been a two- or three-inch deep upside down perfectly conical hole in some dusty ground that an armadillo, possum, ringtail or raccoon excavated in search of food. Among invisible things they'd notice were fresh scents which were especially attractive to them. I could almost imagine the invisible wafts of scent floating their way. It could have been from a twig on the ground next to a well-worn path where someone may have brushed against it or just from the animal's proximity. It could have been a familiar scent wafting in from across the creek from where deer and coyote would sometimes emerge.

If they'd look up, I might follow their lead and see a cardinal couple about to sing an alternating duet or launch from perches very nearby each other. If there were deer about, they'd know it long before I did and indicate their presence by looking in the direction from which they were approaching. I'd see them looking at what appeared to be empty woods, Then suddenly comes from around the corner of the cabin a big strapping Doe leading a couple of Fawns or small group of juvenile and other adult group members.

More than a few times, even in daytime, their glances would soon reveal to me a nearly legendary presence unnoticed by me that quickly became the sudden entirely silent launch from a low-stretching Oak branch of a full wingspan takeoff by a Great Horned or Barred Owl, each looking every bit as large as the two-foot height and four- to five-foot wingspan of which they are biologically capable.

I usually was one to two seconds late to see the moment their massive muscular talons relinquished their grip on the Oak bark and the instant the Owls began their skillful flight outward on air, but I'd shiver a bit and quietly gasp to see those long and broad dark gliding wings flexibly navigating among and between thick clusters of tree trunks and tall saplings as the Owls made their way toward a creekside Sycamore or Cypress or to the steep wooded slope across the creek, either place a safer vantage point away from unpredictable humans. Sometimes they'd leave the entire visible area for strictky Owl reasons. The sighting would feel most amazing when those powerful fully outstretched wings would turn entirely vertical between two trees tightly close together and then bank back toward the horizontal as needed as spaces opened wider and at that point were beginning to flap again after the required gliding had gotten them to where they needed to tactically be. I do wonder if the cats were feeling awed like I was or if they were maybe only a little bit less nonchalant than usual when these very close-by Owl events occurred.

Once I was even able to literally save a fellow cabin neighbor's cat from the jaws of a coyote clamped around the cat's head as his neck and shoulders were pinned against a tree trunk. Inside my cabin, all three of us heard the cat's two long, loud and frightened sorrowful cries for help, about five seconds apart, but I only knew for sure exactly where the attack was specifically happening when I looked down and saw my cats' four ears and two faces, with determined eyes fixed, directly pointing to where I'd immediately need to dash.

Surely enough, the intense activity was exactly in the direction they'd thought it to be, about twenty-five yards from the cabin front door across the wide lower stone patio and into the woods, and I'd guess they were accurate about the range too, and the intensity lightened and relief began to flood in as the Coyote finally opened its jaws and peeled then melted away into the woods toward the creek as I, running and screaming as experts said I should be doing, reached within ten feet away.

My cats excitedly enjoyed exploring the crime scene after the lucky cat was safely back with my neighbor and being placed in their car for the trip to the vet to stitch up the big gash across his handsome right cheek. His self-bitten tongue would heal over time. His shoulder was dislocated and recovered nicely. He was back exploring the woods after two months of mandatory rabies quarantine.

I think my cats found enough sensorial circumstantial evidence to recreate the crime in their potentially four-dimensional minds. I was glad they were reminded to stay cautious out in the wild. My favorite way to describe their natural guidance of me is this: If I've seen something interesting in the woods, it's because the cats saw it first. In this case they were looking with their ears.

Their togetherness had grown immensely close after a beginning of distrust and territorial disputes in the cabin. The second cat had been introduced to the first cat after the first had been my only cat for a year. They soon negotiated wisely a truce that blossomed into a life of acceptance, love, and a deeply intertwined mutually beneficial companionship.

They had individual adventures and ones together, and many with all three of us. They had tweir own tastes and preferences. One cat loved rooftops and climbing trees for sport. The other loved being in the cool air under the raised cabin's breezeway in summer or under a chair on the patio out of the sunlight. One cat loved walking into open doors of other cabins and making himself at home and accompanying strangers down the trail by himself to the floating dock on the cove. The other cat was very content with the one cabin he finally could call his own and wanted as little to do with other people as he possibly could.

One cat, once when on the deck and catching the scent of a coyote lying in wait nearby, would do a startled double-take of his head and hurry into the cabin. The other cat remained sitting up on the deck in the Sphinx position staring intently at the coyote down the slope toward the creek hiding behind some trees, as if thinking, "I dare you" or “just try and catch me”.

On our group walks to the creek, always in the daytime, one cat always made certain that the first thing he'd do was drink from the fresh water. He'd head straight for it. The other cat, standing alongside me, would join me in watching the other cat drinking with pleasure the cool quenching laps of creek before we'd all start walking along it in one direction or the other. One way leads upstream to deeper woods and large boulders strewn like an island chain in the stream bed. The other leads to where the creek joins the cove and where the cove begins to spread out into its great width.

Before we began walking the creek, the thirsty cat would take long drinks, then look up, down, and across the creek, and then take second and sometimes third drinks. He was in no hurry. This cat had previously been homeless in the city not far from downtown but had a creek nearby to help sustain and refresh him. It was very dear to see him cherishing his own creek moment with us.

I wondered while drinking then if he experienced any trace of a welcome subliminal emotional return to those precious quieter moments when his urban yet wild creek quenched his thirst and provided him treasured quietude and at least temporary relief from risk. I do know he warmly welcomed finally having a home he could gladly call his own, regular meals, safe loyal companionship, and a different kind of interesting life that still allowed him access to living wild when he felt like it and also living well.

Both cats loved to wander the woods by themselves, with purpose I'm certain, and upon their returns to the immediate cabin area, their bastion of shared territory and creature comforts, they would always, to me who grew to learn to interpret aspects of their feelings, and even of beliefs about their lives, it would seem even before stepping up onto the deck they would begin basking in if not cherishing the comfort and familiarity of their own lair again, a safe haven after risking confronting who knows what while off in the woods somewhere.

It seemed they were feeling a proprietor's belonging to the place, and not of an ownership of the cabin proper and immediate surroundings, but actually more like an overall pride that they feel fortunate to live with and contribute to, like a pride of lions, lions who only happen to be of a different size, but no less proud and assured of who they are. They felt very proud and assured actually. They were blessed. I don’t know if they knew it, but I’m sure they felt the cat equivalent, which may even humble our own human experience of gratitude, for all we know.

These two kind old gents - their visiting vet called them golden bachelor lions - were my comfort, joy and sustenance. Together they made my early golden years an era of soulful found treasure through the pleasures of their inestimable company, the thoughtful habits and casual intricacies of their cat livelihoods, and their good and sweet natures. Nature herself embraced and enfolded our time together, and freed us up to enjoy each other, and I was happy largely because they were too.

 

Loving Our Very Existence (L.O.V.E)

I'm the beginning of life
I am the end
I'm the Mystery's wife
I am godsend
I am a guest of life
which will never let me die
and I enjoy all of this
without knowing why

I'm the illusion of time
I'm in full bloom
I'm a river in rhyme
I flow from the womb
I have a path to climb
yet I am enough
and I'm truly amazed
that I'm all of this stuff

Here are the answers you seek
here is the soul
here there is hope for the weak
here you are whole
here is where you can now speak
here you'll be heard
here's the presence of prayer
without even a word

Where can I go from here
why would I try
where is the tender and dear
where is the sky
when is the moment most near
when is it not
how can what I want most
seem at some other spot

Now's the time for life's kiss
now is a sign
now is a season of bliss
now's a deep mine
now is a time that I'd miss
now is a pearl
now is patience and grit
in this best of all worlds

I'm the beginning of love
for which there's no end
I'm a singing sweet dove
I am your friend
it's from love I am made
as sweet as a child
I'm the hope you embrace
and I yearn to go wild

I'm the meaning of life
I let my heart rend
I abandon all strife
I'm on the mend
I'm the truth about life
that's hidden from view
I'm free now today
I know what to do
it's the beginning of life
beginning with you

For Flo Piltz, from Larry
(I flow from the womb)

 

                                                                  Mother and daughter

LOVE WILL song

Love Will, with Nimiwari's vocals, arrangement and instruments by Lamar Pecorino, song and produced by Larry Piltz

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ooTFV_MUhcLdrPb0y1AF5xLvQcZmm_K7/view?usp=sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBLAmdULkQ&feature=youtu.be THE DIFFERENCE Pro-death sentence? One of the Ten Commandments says otherwise (and the others imply otherwise), as do our consciences. Vengeance ain't mine, even though schadenfreude is of familiar acquaintance and a guilt-ish pleasure when the karmee feels so damned deserving. Still, the two are not a strained 'both-sides' question. The only question these days, and maybe ever, is how many people have to suffer and die when a choice is possible. Right now, a choice is possible. I'm writing really about the current coronavirus pandemic. A very large but minority subset of humanity lacks the courage. spiritual maturity, or just plain impulse control to unfollow the path of unnecessary - and in this case totally unworkable - herd immunity. They'd rather get it over with and let likely millions of people unnecessarily die, with prolonged horrible deaths no less, than, well, just plain try to ease the suffering and prevent the extra dying by using proven measures of prevention. The difference between the pro-death sentence subset and the majority people of compassion and patience is courage. We've got it. They ain't, at least not when it comes to some of the most crucial matters of the heart and soul. The difference may be a complete accident of birth or fate, such as we know such quixotic determination, and we're the ones both cursed and blessed with this particular courage of insight and action, but we have no choice but to live up to it, live with it, and act upon it. It's not an impossible dream to enact love and peace in our lives and in our world, but it is incumbent upon the compassionate among us to suffer the uncompassionate, or seemingly less so, whom we shall always have with us. They do possibly have an advantage though. They often would by and large be glad and many even giddy if we were the part of the herd that disappeared, while if they were the part of the herd that disappeared, we would grieve and agonize over how it could have been different. The Difference makes all the difference and makes the world livable and enjoyable, for all, even for our friends who it seems rarely stand down from their harsher shorter-sighted views of the world. It takes all kinds, we know, but both sides are not equal and some things are not negotiable. However, good things are possible, and that's no dream.

The Flight Attendant and the Tumbling Turtle of Turtle Cove

The Cats and I were walking the woodsy trail alongside the cove to the small floating dock. I was in the lead. They were moving along as the feline spirit moved and accomplishing their typical various goals of grazing select grasses, sniffing suspect drooping branches and cone-shaped holes left by browsing armadillos or possum, and malingering with purpose with occasional forward progress made. They've been known to dart ahead of me or keep up with my patient pace, but this wasn't one of those walks. They eventually caught up to me but not before all the excitement had commenced and the drama concluded.

Suddenly something ahead of me caught my attention. At a medium distance, it looked and sounded like a 10-pound rock tumbling roughly over and over down the steep shaded rocky slope to my left. I wondered why it had suddenly fallen, if maybe a deer had brushed up against it as I’ve seen happen, or if eroded ground beneath it had finally given way.

Surprisingly, it was a turtle, its shell now lying almost evened-out flat with the dusty ground contiguous with the harder-packed trail, with the critter's nobly-shaped head and soft neck protruding out the front. It must be in shock or stunned, I thought, because normally it would be hiding entirely inside its shell with someone as close to it as I was, about one foot away. I looked closely for wounds or a crack in the shell but could find nothing except maybe a scuff or two. It seemed turtle had escaped a more debilitating fate.

Turtle is one of the numerous red slider turtles native to Turtle Cove, which its beautifully hued red horizontal racing stripe on each cheek divulged. It's a small adult, likely a female, who might have been trying to find her way back to the water after laying her eggs, or maybe she was still searching for a great spot for a nest. Either way, the hard pounding jolts she felt while piggybacking on gravity’s way down the slope, the partial hollowness of the shell providing the loud thunks, interrupted whatever mission she had been on.

Given her condition, her state of shock or mere dazedness, and because she's probably just shaken up and only a little bruised, I decided she most needed to get back in the water. That cool quick immersion would uncloud her head, I reasoned and hoped. After that, she could decide what she needs to do next. It’s still her life, after all. Turtles pretty much live in water and right beside it. There’s nothing like pleasant familiar territory and creature comforts to buck up one of nature’s unlikely little miracles

I picked her up, with her aerodynamically shaped head and slender neck a fuselage sticking frontward out of her shell, and carried her at a quick pace in front of me waist-high, her deeply dark and clear eyes peering directly forward. She was virtually flying through the air, and she seemed actually amazed though was probably more stunned still than anything else.

I'd give almost anything to know what she's thinking, or feeling, as she flew along out in front of me. She turned her neck right and left and back again, looking for familiar signs to try and help make sense of what was happening to her. She seemed to briefly catch sight of me, which could cause alarm, but most importantly to her, when she looked back to the right and slightly downward through the line of cypresses, she saw the silvery wetness of the cove stretching out glistening almost as far as she could see.

From the moment she first saw the water - until I gently set her down on a flat limestone rock directly on the edge of the shore and she immediately leaped down and into the water - she had kept her head turned directly toward the cove and never took her eyes off the water, knowing she had found her salvation. She knew, just knew, that if only she could get back to the water she would be okay, and there it was, beckoning, no matter how strange things had become for her in the last brief interval.

The whole interlude, from tumbling down the rocky slope to her split-decision, once set down on the rock, to quietly plop down into the shallow depth, lasted only about one minute.

I think her instantaneous, sure-footed leap a few inches down into the cool cove water made me almost as happy as it made her, though I know it's impossible for me to truly walk a mile in her shell. Congratulations, little friend. You made it back to your cove harbor, your haven, partly the hard way, partly at the insistence of a taller power, and finished with a splash entirely your own.