second version replaces first, now with cat in her arms.
MILLICENT
second version replaces first, now with cat in her arms.
Tag Archives: cat
second version replaces first, now with cat in her arms.
Poem: On Flood Season and Rumors of Loss
When springtime brought snowmelt and storms and forecasted floods.
And the salesmen refused to return my frantic calls about flood
Insurance, i threw caution to the April winds and my cat into the river
In my dream and my dreamed-cat swam, caught fish in the rising river,
And ate forever, sleek, fat, and mackerel happy.
It was I, in truth, who was unhappy.
If floods be told as a truth of what matters most,
My cat could fend for herself in most matters
Whether or not she could swim. Her survival drive
Would have propelled her to dry higher ground well before mine
Had woken to any work of emergency leaving.
I wanted what mattered to me most to be believing
That i had something to lose and to lose that,
That belief. Life is the art of leaving all that
We love and what we hate without attaching
To our desire to keep things. Life is flux. But at each thin
Peak between birth and dying, frail weaklings,
How hard we clutch, how fast we cling.
New Trading Cards: Boat in Cove and Cat on Rug
ATC card of cat on Braided rug done with Caran D’ache Luminance pencils. Best pencils available but you pay for them!
Also an ATC card, 2.5 by 3.5 in size, surrounded by a black mat and brown frame. This boat was pulled up on the shore of the wethersfield cove and was resting on the wooden slat of a railed fence.
This last picture of my Caran D’ache five dollar pencils… Because of their expense I make a big fuss about how to sharpen them. I used to use an electric sharpener because it was convenient, but the pencils were seater up immensely and wastefully so. Now I use a prismacolor pointer for the leads. (In case you would not, the one on the left is made from Dad’s ? I dunno, but I would love to see hatt picture framed and given to the, first..lI will give you a good photo and sculpture from the other book.
OK I am down for the count. Gotta of to sleep NOW.
Red Rum in Red Room (or Why is that Cat Scared of Me?): a painting by Pamwagg
Yes I actually managed to paint this picture — in gouache, not oils, true, but I did it, I picked up paints and brushes and from start to finish made a complete painting. This is a big step for me. True, I did the running shoes picture a bit earlier but that was really just a sketch. I have been drawing for so long, and so scared of painting that it feels really BIG that I did this, good or bad a picture though it might be. Sooooo, what’ja think? (By the way, it is a self-portrait – not flattering but hey…)
My only Sweetheart, Dead, and a Poem About Her…
WHOM IS IT REALLY WE KILL? OF WHOM IS IT REALLY WE DREAM?
Is it only two years the little cat’s dead now?
She persists
not in an innocent’s dream
but at my door, so real
I can feel her fur in my tears.
Whoever called the injections
by which we kill our animals “sleep”
had no conscience.
Euphemisms hide facts
but they do not change them, for surely
if my brain believed there was good in her death,
Eemie would not reappear like Banquo’s ghost,
reproaching with her presence
telling me truths I already know:
Even cats can die of loneliness
and she had had enough of being left to fend for herself.
Of course, there was food and water,
but after my father’s death,
she gave up waiting for some density of me
to return, to connect.
Then she gave up wanting me or food.
And when her liver failed
it was too late for anyone’s love to save her.
But what of her last look-around at the stainless world?
How could I think it curiosity,
that sudden raised head,
when it was only a reflex to euthanasia?
How could I not understand such plain table truth?
I asked the vet how long it would take.
“She’s already gone,” the vet said.
Animal Art
Different kind of artwork for me: Car Picture for Tim
Okay, this is for the boys!
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Some sad news that I only feel able to share now, is that I had to put my beloved cat of 17 years to sleep on Friday last…and it was truly awful. I didn’t understand that it would be so fast. The vet injected something in Eemie’s vein, and she lifted her head as if in curiosity — then put it down — I asked how long it would take, and the vet said softly, “She’s gone…” I burst into tears, having had no understanding that in fact she wasn’t curious, she had been taking her long last breath. Oh god, I miss her so. I keep wondering where she is when I get up in the morning, and when I get home from wherever I have gone out to, I feel that someone is missing, that I need to feed her, and find her… and then I realize I don’t have a companion any longer, that Eemie is no longer…I am tearful even as I write this, and I wish I could post the video that a friend made of us a week or two before she became seriously disabled. She was ill, yes, but you couldn’t really tell on the video since we just cuddle. I am so glad that the friend had the foresight to encourage it. Because now I have that to remember Eemie by. I know it wouldn’t mean much to anyone else. But like any doting grieving mother, I would post it because I still feel the grief and feel somehow that everyone else would want to see it too. (Which of course would be silly but the grieving do silly things. I know that.)
To lose Eemie on top of my father, Leo, and Joe too just exactly one year ago April 27th feels like really too many losses piled on top of one another. But one gets through or breaks and I cannot let that happen. I do believe that I am strong enough in general to get through it, and while I did take Haldol for a few days it had more to do with the Middlesex stress (yes, a little to do with Eemie I admit) than anything else…Okay, it did have to do with Eemie, but I think without Middlesex coming up I might have weathered Eemie better.
But I got through it and I stopped taking Haldol on Monday, haven’t needed it since then, or have slogged through without it. Did the car picture since then, so things could not have been too too bad. Artwork is always good therapy anyway. Better than drugs if I can get myself out of bed and organized enough to do it.
By the way, my art show is up and on exhibit at the WETHERSFIELD LIBRARY right now. I have work on three walls, plus the display case, for those of you who live near enough to Wethersfield or Hartford to stop by and see it. If not, you can always check out Photobucket and see what is there, though you lose a great deal by not seeing things “in person” of course. It cannot be helped, naturally!
Enough for now. I hope last night’s post was not too negative, not too mean-spirited and revengeful. I was very angry, and very upset. The very idea that the director of the Middlesex Hospital psychiatric unit said anything at all, rather than simply remaining silence just incensed me. I think that was a grave mistake, and he likely regretted it afterwards. I suspect that the CEO probably told him that it was not something he should have indulged in…But what he said is said, and it only retraumatized me if anything. The notion that he, who wasn’t even there during the episode, and ought to have been appalled, simply took the side of my torturers was to me itself disgusting and appalling. But he will get his comeuppance, one can only hope, and I won’t have to do anything about it, since presumably the Joint Commission and the DOJ will do it all.
Enough of that. I am really tired and need to eat something. Ta ta for now.
WAGblog: Dum Spiro Spero 