Meow!

Speaking of moons...again...

I can remember back in college, sitting in a poetry class not paying attention to the lecture, thinking about....I don't know, whatever 19 year olds think about. Stuff? Anyway, I suddenly realize that the lecture had stopped and everything was quiet. I looked up from my notebook and saw tears streaming down the professor's face. He had been reading a poem by William Butler Yeats. Yeats can do that to you. And you don't even have to be Irish, Catholic, or have 6 children with the surname Murphy, but it doesn't hurt. Today's poem is called The Cat and the Moon. And, for the love of all things Irish, do not tell Dr. Murphy this poem is in a Baby Einstein video. There's not enough Kleenex in the world for those kind of tears.

The cat went here and there.
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifing his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn.
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.