The cat, Peter, in this poem refers
to my cat, Peter, who I'm afraid died
last autumn at the age of 10.
And I wanted-- I was rather moved by this.
Anybody, I imagine, who's kept a pet will have experienced
a curious mixture of emotions that you have
in reflecting on its death.
It's possible to feel very, very intensely, and at the same time
to worry about feeling intensely.
Because you think, well, after all, it's only a cat.
I mustn't be sentimental about it.
I determined that I had to write a poem on the theme
of this cat's death.
And I struggled a long time to get the right tone for it.
And then I was reading Skelton's Phillip Sparrow
about a death of a girl's pet bird,
and I was very struck by the immense mixture
of sort of erudition, eccentricity, and the macabre
in that poem.
And I tried in a miniature way to do the same thing
in a poem of mine.
It's a sort of Gothic poem for children, I suppose, really.
And it's called "To a Slow Drum."
It really needs to be done, I think, to an actual drum beat,
but I'll do it as best I can.
Solitary thoughts and burial mounds begin this dirge,
and mournful sounds.
Now to the dead march troop in twos,
the granite owls with their who, was, who's.
The bat and the grave, yew bear on his wheels,
Tuborg the pig with his hard wood heels.
Gemmed with a dew of mourning tears,
the weeping armadillo has brought his shears.
The droop-eared dog and the lion come, dipping their long waists
to meet the drum.
On the bare chafing dish as each one hears,
the gray lead pigs reverse their spears.
Grooved in line they show no grief, grouped above us
here in yellow leaf.
A tree's life blown through a crack
in the door over the red black kitchen floor.
A solitary spider stalks to his place, all eight legs wet
from the waist.
He climbed up the drain to be here on time, now
to the slow egg timer's chime.
Shiny in state come things from the grime, tiny slaters
with wings and hoods.
Beetles from the closet under the stairs,
gashed with sorrow each fixed eye stares.
Fairbanks crawls from his winter leaves,
he rubs his eyes on his prickling sleeves.
Rattling his plate for a sad sound,
his black legs cover the chill ground.
At a fair speed he creeps to our knees.
Now the hall resounds to the tread of toes,
as each one gathers and the crowd grows.
Broken spirit at the bears upstairs, troop
to the banisters and droop their ears.
The brown one squats, glum cheeks in his paws,
the blue one strums a melancholy string.
From all feasts of fish he wove good fur, alas,
no fish stale death can deter.
As the drum beats the long cortege winds to the attic,
as towards the stage.
Some hop and skip, some crawl or run, the sad music
holds everyone.
Crouched by the window, all weep to view Peter, poor, Peter,
drift up the flue.
Now all together they chant his dirge,
grouped by the ledge where the chimneys merge.
Peter, salt Peter, fish-eating cat,
feared by the blackbird, stung by the gnat.
Wooden spider collector, lean as a rat,
soon you shall fall to a fine gray fat.
Peter, salt Peter, drift into the wind.
Enter the water where all have sinned.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive yours.
Remember us in heaven as clean scales and furs, as we you
on Earth here when any cat purrs.
Peter, salt Peter, farewell and live,
as we do, remembering, and so, forgive.
Over the whole world a sad pall falls, fur into fine air, bone
into ash.
A chill water wets every lash.
Peter, salt Peter, by pleurisy slain,
the pale glass weeps in its wooden pane.
Come to the cat flap and slap in again.
Peter, salt Peter, the bird of death, aboding raven,
chokes off my breath.
Along the warm tears and doleful words, and this dirge,
and the screams of birds.