The cat is a continuous function: smooth trace of a hand
along the length of her body, though only periodically
differentiable from the matrix of her surroundings:
discrete irregular patches of color and shadowed shapes
integrating into the background, absolute stillness
in the closed curve of perfect sleep; a twitch, oscillation
about the axis of her boneless, unparalleled comfort –
a viper’s downward pointing diamond of a head;
but prone to hyperbolic extremes and tangents of sudden activity
intersecting other moving curves – string, crumbled paper balls
filled with failed formulas, or the too-geometric bodies
of insects that she decomposes in a single chittering snap.
Though there is this difference – not so monotonically predictable
as her nature would have us assume – no extrapolation from
largely imaginary initial conditions will prove for long reliable –
not even her prime determinant: to swallow entropy in the form
of field mice, or the snakes that poison our geometries –
cylinders of granaries or sudden sharp irregularities
of buildings, temples, roads, fields; imposing, through her
sinuous curves, straight lines – chaos giving incongruous rise
to order like flocks of birds, swerving as one, in flight.
For more on Don Raymond, please see our Authors page.
Amarillo Bay 