the cats of lewis bay
the history of feral cats dates back to the first beach-cottage pilgrims who landed on sunny shores and believed that unspayed abandoned felines could take care of themselves. when vacation was over, they were left behind: generations spawned by ‘vacation kittens’. a notice tacked on the telephone pole says ‘abandoning animals is an act of cruelty’
webster and ali (after muhummad)since i came to live at the old family compound five years ago, i’ve been rescuing wayfaring cats and nurturing wild kittens. the shelter once was a garage, a walk-in most luckily attached to the house. heated too with a backside 'garden room' and bright windows designed some sixty years ago for winter seedsprouting. there is now a closed circuit tv monitor upstairs so i can work in the studio and watch (hear mostly) the animals. what i hear said most often: ‘it will take a team to be able to catch one of us when you have a scheduled medical’ and there are some good people who donate their service in servitude to the silky swift ones. but we have had to cancel and reschedule numerous appointments at the vets just the same.
elohim, bottlefed foundling, survivedthey came because of the plentitude of birds in the yard. my aunt, a birdwatcher, invited mallards and other winged creatures to the land. (she would also graciously invite doorknocking witness preachers holding bibles in for tea and tell them how great it was to be what she already was and they would leave converted) thea specially loved the twitchy little chickadee with awe and reverence as tho mini-embodiments of the greatest miraculousnesss. she had a sweet singing voice and introduced me to opera (la boheme was the first) and serious literature (shakespeare) as a young child. for some reason it sounded like fairy tales when i was little but made no sense at all once i got to high school. one day, i’ll never forget, as we were crossing a puddle, she called me ‘observant’. i was three and i needed to know what that word meant right away no time to wait. and so i learned what ‘observant’ was and it became part of me. when i was seven years old she handed me a mysterious asian book with tissues over brushpainted leafs and gold embossed bindings filled with sparse lines of haiku and i’ve never been the same since.
a young plump yellowshafted flicker - the photo surprised me with a feather pattern on the birds tailback, that looks so much like calligraphy from the I Ching
her dog had just died and she was sick too. there was a heavy coat of sadness covering the walls.
acrylic/paper portrait of thea i did a long time agoafter she died, i continued feeding the birds, in fact, widened the circle of birdfeeding considerably. where before there’d been only two feeders i bumped it up to seven. and then slowly the deck became a giant flatfeeder too. the birds were literally flocking to our trees, dazzling me with their predawn concertos and melodies calling from flashes of wing, entire winds of wing if u will.
soon thereafter the roaming cats made their presence known. a whole year went by after thea died, and i didnt even know they were there, breeding in the tumbledown old cottage at the back of the lot. testament as to how stealthlike and inscrutabullish the felines truly are.
the cats opened windows and showed the pathways of the fox, possum, chipmunks, squirrels, ducks and turtles all frequent visitors to this rough rocksoil pebbleground where you dig trenches and put in peat if you want a garden. the earth is slippery sand below the feet on this here street. they make it look green just the same , the grasses and trees who happen to thrive in salt air, high wind, fog and mist, they make shade ripples and tarnished silvery chimesound in summer. and there is something about scrub pines like saltcrusty old sailors crooked and wry wiry irey
nuthatch on scrub pine, watercolor on flecked rice paper. nuthatches r the only birds who walk headfirst down the treetrunk. i know they are not so blue, they are more grey but i liked it bluetheres a protected marshland across the street, an untouched teeming wetland where there was a coyote invasion a few years ago. one appeared one day in the yard, it was mother’s day in fact of 2006. i left coffee company to go outside for a minute, the topcat was out and i went to call her in. suddenly i realized i was looking at a coyote at the far end of the driveway and ‘wow its as tall as a donkey’ i thought and similar in some points of reference. coyote likely scented the cat who was nowhere to be seen, but by then i understood cats and how they know exactly what to do in awareness of danger. a big if but she was one smart girl.
my brother and i chased the coyote away, waving old wooden stickswords i used long ago in shim gum do zen sword practice, hollering like we were about to hyeeee break a brick with your bare hand. the underside of coyote feet in thumpiddythump receding, then galloot galloot away, but i knew coyote would be back because he was running for the thicket of gigantamansions along the harbors inside edge. no scrappers, indeed no garbinging for foodsource, people who own those houses are rarely in them. they stand empty most of the year. but thats another story.
detail: 'grackle on beachgrass' acrylic on paper so i call her now, and she crawls out from under the car, somewhat shyly trying to hide her excitement. she makes me laugh this little hussy queen of everything around here. she meets and greets at the door for me and tends the printer when its cranking. she insists i call her ‘majesty, the best queen in the world’. she’d answer the phone if i let her. she helps with preparing checkins for indoor life, having been there herself, she is the living testimonial to x-feralhood. nothing she likes better than parading pufftailed in front of any newcomers, pointedly purring against my legs. she is a benevolent queen too. prefers to wait until the others have been served rather than demanding to be served first, the antithesis to what most queens do. she waits in silent acquiescence because she knows that the upper crust of the hierarchy, me and she, will be breaking bread at the same time a little afterwards.
tindi taking notesi follow this saying from an old jewish proverb: always feed the animals before you feed the humans. (but i think they were talking about farmpeople with goats cows and chickens) which sometimes isnt easy to do after a long night of artworking sparse sleep and postfast hunger. so i keep muffins in the freezer for those times, i figure thats not real eating. and i figure this life is real fellini felinicious and suitable to la boheme. for now. anyone need a few mousers?
xxx
