Poe, Rilke, and Our Black Cat

Think Halloween, and what comes to mind (after tick-or-treat candy) are the big 3 icons of witches, pumpkins, and black cats. Mummies, skeletons, and zombies are more Johnny-come-latelys in the Halloween extravaganza. These days, witches have gone mainstream respectable, and Linus and Charlie Brown own the Great Pumpkin, and so the black cat is left to shoulder Halloween largely alone.

My family had a black cat, once. Actually, the cat had us. One day in the middle of winter the cat showed up in the neighborhood. She had a collar but no tags, and she looked healthy. The neighborhood children fed her potato chips and milk, guaranteeing it would hang around. My wife warned the children that, if they kept feeding it, the cat would never leave (not the best argument to make to a child).

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.