My cat’s cousin many millennia removed
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Next post: “I’ll stop now before I say something that will get me in trouble, if I haven’t already.”
Previous post: Georgia, Georgia…
Address for Donations, Complaints, Brickbats, and — oh yes — Donations
In Memory Of W.B. Yeats
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Your Say
My Thinking Hat
My Back Pages
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Search American Digest’s Back Pages
The People Yes
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Camouflage
Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Chimes of Freedom
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
The Vault
My Back Pages
Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
De Breanski
VAN GOGH
Hillegas
To the Stonecutters
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
As if I had just woken from all water into dream.
— Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, 1973
Comments on this entry are closed.
There is a reason why black cats like the elegant Miss Olive are called house panthers by their humans, as this slow-mo photography illustrates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd2kSjLAnPU&ab_channel=AneDijitak
Ever watch a domestic cat stalk something?
Make no mistake.
They are calculating, cold blooded killers.
He looks just like my ol’ kitty, The Skinamalink, right down to those emerald eyeballs.
JWM
My brother plays host to a feral cat that showed up at his farm 8-10 years ago. He and his girl friend can seemingly hold her for a few seconds and she’ll permit me to pet her but will usually give me a gentle nip to tell me to not get too friendly. As far as cats go, I like the old girl.
But Ghost is right. This thing is a killer. She’s has constant access to food and water and she eats it without hesitation but she also kills and drags home anything she can find. Large field rats with heads removed, wild birds and snakes of every description and she takes great pride in hauling in her latest varmint cadaver and placing it in front of my brother’s truck so that he can see her latest victim.
We host Miss Olive’s brother, a feral-born house cat who does not understand why I cannot see him crouched at the bottom of the stairs in darkness.
Gerard, I will have to send you the model of wire brush that delivers him into a perfect statue, standing on my lap. He sounds like a dove, cooing.
@Jack: This thing is a killer.
I have always believed that the cat who brings home a series of small dead creatures—despite being a well-fed cat—is showing gratitude. The cat wants you to know that he/she is on the job, doing the work to keep you safe, and is thanking you for providing good food, a safe place to sleep, and trustworthy affection.
In Mel Gibson’s wonderful film “Apcolypto” the black cat, the Jaguar, plays a pivotal role.
It’s now free if you’re on Amazon Prime. I bought it shortly after it went to DVD. Don’t know if it’s on Blu-Ray or not. It’s well worth watching.
Thank, Fuel. I have been meaning to watch Apocalypto for years.
I’ve spent a long lifetime going into the woods and the mountains, often alone. I have seen tracks, but I’ll be dipped if I’ve ever seen a wild cat in the USA. As my late father in law once said, “Okay, you’ve not seen them, but they’ve seen you!”
However…and this is a lifetime achievement, as the above paragraph will indicate…I did see a black panther in the wild! Once, in Costa Rica, and he was about 400 yards away. Certainly a thrill!
Casey,
Of all my time in the field I have seen a mountain lion only once. In 2016, I was near Pritchett CO while hunting Merriam wild turkey. I was armed with an old Winchester Model 43 chambered in .22 Hornet. I suddenly realized that I was completely outgunned.
Snakepit, I am envious of you your Model 43; a nice weapon and a keeper.
There was a turkey hunter here in the recent past who was attacked by a mountain lion; for those who don’t know, turkey hunters are like ghosts in the field, by design, and stumble onto dangerous game because of this. After that, we all started carrying large sidearms as personal protection. It also doesn’t hurt to be able to defend from a take-away of your shotgun, which is a scenario that can happen.
I also envy your big cat sighting.
Well now. 40 years, and thousands of hours out in the sticks in southwest Florida, and I only saw wild assed alligators once. And yes, they seen me first, for their bolting for the water is what caught my eye. Neither have I seen a rattlesnake in the wild. Plenty of corals, black mocs, etc. But no rattlers.
Last week I bought a brand new in the box Ruger 10/22 for the very first time. It’s the stripped down version cause I intend to make it “mine” in all ways. Currently the metal is black and the polymer stock is a hideous gray but that stuff will change. I also bought a 4-16×40 scope for it, mounted it, and will take it to the range today for sighting in. In the next few months this machine will be tricked out and I expect to put all25 of em in the same hole at 100 yds. Oh yeah, the Ruger is “off the books”. Bought privately from a guy that learned the hard way that you don’t buy a gun for a young nephew without first securing the permission of the parents. I got it for $220 cash. Had been looking for one for months but none were available from any sources.
Ghost, I have twice kilt wounded deer with .222. Well, okay, the game man (say that real fast) pulled the trigger the second time but it was my #350 Muley trophy buck. His sheriff Ruger 10/22 sank round after round after round into the behemoth, at point blank range. No effect. The unfortunate beast just looked at us (his spine was severed already) and pretty much his look said, “what else ya got?”
I’m very sorry to the group for the ugly story. I won’t convert any non-hunters with it, I’m certain. If you need a man standing on the wall, it isn’t going to be a Metro Sexual man doing it. I’m trying to tell you the killing power of your new Ruger is limited. It required 10 rounds, and finally I let him place one in my soon-to-be mounted head. The first deer I did this for also needed 1o rounds. When they ask that rhetorical question about how many rounds do you need in a magazine to kill a deer, my answer is 10, and I fukn know that by experience.
Murder for a mount? Please. We ate the meat at the start of the Corona Virus lockdown when WalMart had totally empty meat shelves. His shoulder mount looks imposing above my desk, too. 5×5. See? That makes 10, which is the number of .222 rounds necessary for a mammal over #200. Be advised.
My social media score just guttered, I’m sure. Maybe after this is read by The Ghost, the kind host can poooft it magically.
All they “think” about is how to get that perfect neck bite that separates the spine.
All the while, not getting a life debilitating injury in the process.
I may need to remind people of 2 things. The only thing smaller than .22 in the ghost arsenal is a Beretta BB pistol at .177. The other thing is that when a soldier kills an enemy soldier the enemy soldier soldiers on perhaps to kill you another day. But if the soldier severely injures an enemy soldier than one or more other enemy soldiers must be used to take care of the injured one. The net loss can be substantial. One more thing. A soldier shot through the eye may not die but he will never be a soldier again. Regardless of gun size shot placement is paramount.