Nanki-Poo in pensive mood

A Small-Sized Mystery

Leave a door open long enough,
a cat will enter.
Leave food, it will stay.
Soon, on cold nights,
you’ll be saying “excuse me”
if you want to get out of your chair.
But one thing you’ll never hear from a cat
is “excuse me.”
Nor Einstein’s famous theorem.
Nor “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
In the dictionary of Cat, mercy is missing.
In this world where much is missing,
a cat fills only a cat-sized hole.
Yet your whole body turns toward it
again and again because it is there.
By Jane Hirshfield

Many thanks to Rev. Margaret for this poem answering that question I posed some time ago around what is the enchantment surrounding cats?

And animals can be used and collected to accumulate the most terrible suffering. See Animal Hording. Do take a few deep breaths to prepare yourself before clicking on the link. Then offer your good thoughts for animals and humans caught in this horrendous web of suffering – together.