| Talking
in Tongues
When
I was a lad we moved cross the great Atlantic to a strange city. There we rented
a home that came with a cat.
Pooh Cat, to look
at, was an unprepossessing cat: a feisty tabby. She would sit on the brick pedestal
that housed the front gate and dangle her paw to tempt taunt or claw passing dogs.
She once chased a friend's spaniel yelping round the yard till rescued.
Pooh
Cat became a friend. I seem to draw them. Not friends: cats.
Pooh
was eleven or twelve, my age.
One day coming
home I found a lump or bundle in my bed, beneath the blanket, that purred when
touched: Pooh and kittens.
Before that, though,
I think it was I found the cat curled up sleeping in the closet, and I went and
snuggled my face, my nose, into her belly. And that was my first experience of
true intimacy.
And have I had any since? Oh,
degrees. But even when you said I love you, I was distracted.
There's something else I want to mention some absolute
meaning that's supposedly in Sanskrit chants. We know that words are symbols and
don't have meaning in themselves. But the Sanskrit bit, that here there is power
and meaning in the sound itself…
OM Sat
Chit Ananda, the very breath of God.
So I was a little in an altered state the other
day but focused and here, somewhat present, and saying goodbye to my dog Lucky,
going out, at the door, but stopped and crossed the room to put my face to Lucky's
side, and paused, and Proust into Pooh Cat a life ago, oh grace.
Migwetch, Heara, I said.
Migwetch is thank you in Annishnabi,
the language
of this land.
Heara is a neologism
a slur
of heart and hridya
heart in Sanskrit.
Herea
is a private name I've called my dog.
Migwetch
Heara, I said to Lucky,
speaking in tongues.
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