CATSCAN



A few days ago the manuscript for Jack Foley's selected poems The Seed arrived. I unwrapped it and set it on our kitchen table. Almost immediately our cat, Thelonious, lay down on it and began to ponder it. He dictated a poem for me to send to Jack as a response to the book.
Jake Berry

The Seed as Enchanted Couch

by Thelonious M. Berry
(translated from the feline)

Who is this Foley that made The Seed
where I lean and loaf and often read?
His charmes and choruses leave me enchanted
and give me pause where my feet are planted.
The aspect I think I most approve
are the words that sing and dance and move.
And among them what I find the choicest
and the poems that speak with many voices.
They are like the flocks of birds I see
in the yard outside and would love to eat.
They chirp and flutter and taken sudden flight
just at the moment I'm poised to strike.
But when I dream they come back to me
to sing again and give me wings.
So tell me who is this Foley creature?
Singer, dancer, poet and teacher
whose words make books where I take my ease
and prove my cool where his muses breathe.

(Translator's note: the rhythm and rhyme
are human inventions because, as
everyone knows, cats compose in a variable foot.)



To which Mr. Foley replied:

Please give my heartfelt thanks to your wonderfully perceptive feline companion, Thelonious. I wrote the following doggerel (forgive the pun!) in response to his masterly cat strokes (his CATches).

TO THELONIOUS, MASTER CAT

Who is this cat who’ll sit and crouch
Upon my book as upon a couch?
Why, he’s Thelonious, cat so rare
He disdains both pillow and chair
To place on my verses his graceful end.
Ah, Thelonious, feline friend!
I hear them saying, Goodness, that’s
Clearly the Northrop Frye of cats
Cats can be choosy (some say acidic)
But Theolonious is a genuine critic!
When on my verses he puts his furs,
I understand he smiles and purrs.
How wonderful (may there be no removal)
To receive a critical cat’s approval.

(To be translated into variable paw)