————-—The brain is just the weight of God.
———————–——Emily Dickinson
Saint Bonaventure—twelfth century, Italy—
said that to love God, we must start small—
flowers, rocks, birds—and work our way up
to angels, then God. Because we can’t love
an abstraction. So, I begin with my cats.
I begin with a woman—the woman being me—
taking a nap in the living room, and a cat
who enters the room, though it’s possible
the cat was always there. Isn’t that just like a cat—
to always be there? The cat sleeps, too,
curled up on the woman’s torso. And the woman thinks—
(though it might have been a dream):
A cat is just the weight of God…. And we—
my wife and I—have four of them.
Not a single one, an abstraction. Rosa and Hitchcock,
named for characters on a TV crime show
we still haven’t seen. Hansel and Gretel,
found in the woods at four months old.
They’re indoor cats now, but our house
is in the woods. At night, we hear coyotes
a little too close. And Gretel, small for her age,
will look up at me—her green eyes rounded with fear—
like she has something to say about what happened
or didn’t happen. Were there other siblings—
littermates who didn’t make it? And the mother,
whatever happened to the mother?
In church, on Kindergarten Sunday,
I’m surrounded by mothers and children.
Fathers, grandparents. I don’t belong here,
in this sea of girls with white bows and boys
in button-down shirts. During the service,
the children gather up front to sing “Peace Like a River”
complete with hand motions. Peace,
the two-finger V. Love, two hands shaped
into a heart. Other motions for river and ocean.
Soul (which appears to take multiple forms).
Joy and fountain, as in joy like a fountain.
But my heart isn’t there. I’m too busy
feeling sorry for myself, surrounded
by happy parents with their happy children,
all of whom are surely living happy lives.
And during these not-quite-oceanic feelings
of grief, there to my left appears—out of nowhere—
little Gretel curled up next to me on the pew,
looking up at me with her frightened coyote eyes—
as if to remind me suffering is everywhere.
You could say this was all in my mind
but the point is, my mind, in that moment,
was changed. Which is to say, it’s not other people’s
lives that I want. I just want my mother.
So, of course, I imagine she’s here too—
and not just her but Rosa, Hitchcock, and Hansel.
Not a single one, an abstraction. My mother
was never a cat person, but here she is
admiring each beautiful cat—the greens and yellows
of their particular eyes, the softness
of their particular fur (Hansel, softest of all).
Here she is declaring each one to be
that perfect weight.
Lisa Dordal is author of Mosaic of the Dark, Water Lessons, and Next Time You Come Home (all from Black Lawrence). Her poetry has appeared in The Sun, Narrative, Best New Poets, and Essential Queer Voices of US Poetry.
Photo by Zeke Tucker on Unsplash
