I also know you will not ask me, perched atop god’s
flail, to hand out praise and blame, to make accounts
and to give lessons. They’re not lacking either. My
Korean friends (and Chinese and Soviet), you have not
finished receiving lessons -lessons in political realism
from the honest scribes of the Great Agony, lessons of
tolerance from under Inquisitor’s robes, while from
the back seat they’ll tell you, really, you attach too
much importance to material success. The blind
husband will snicker at your daughters’ purity, the half-
learned at the infancy of your art, and everyone will
weave you a crown of thorns from their own failures.
The times are strange, good cat, and fast. Lewis Carroll
lied: a fox terrier wanders among the signs of the zodiac
And on the oceans the great whales proclaim the glory
of the Lord, hallelujah.
It’s the festival of machines: so they are decorated
-flowers, green plants, flags, quotations. Offer them
necklaces, pendants, they will become vain like owls.
Just a little longer, cat, and they will take care of the
house. Just a little longer.
And then, cat, we’ll be their cats.