On Little Cat Feet

0218
Discussion In The Clouds
2008-01-22: Whiskers
Al borde del precipicio

The fog has crept in. It’s been here all week.

I hope it stays put. There is something magical about looking out the window into a cocoon of dew.

Maybe less so on those days when you have to go out and drive in it.

But magical nonetheless. For its power to make everything around you more snuggly. For the extra glow it gives streetlamps and Christmas lights. For its demand that you bundle up in cozy handknit scarves and hats.

Magical also for the way it makes me think of an assembly I went to in seventh grade. The school had invited actors to recite monologues and poetry. I think they were trying to sell us on the arts -- convince us that the arts were cool.

What I remember is one actor in particular. He had a Shakespearean voice and Firebird feet. He tiptoed and glided about, and performed for us, with his dynamic range of boom to whisper, a short poem on cats and fog.

When I sit still and really think about it, I can still hear him. I can still feel my amazement at his grace.

I am constantly tempted to attribute this poem to e.e. cummings, and I attribute that particular moment as the very time and place in time my love of cummings was born.

But it's not, is it? It's Carl Sandburg instead.

(Funny memories. Cradled in a fog all their own.)