Aught, the Shillourokambos Cat

3D reconstruction of the Early Aceramic Neolithic grave of Shillourokambos.* J.-D. Vigne et al., “Early Taming of the Cat in Cyprus,” Science, 304 (April 9, 2004)

“Middle English, from Old English āwiht, from ā ever + wiht creature, thing.”

—Merriam Webster, s.v.

In 2004, French archaeologists,

At a site in Cyprus called Shillourokambos, 

Found the grave, some nine and a half thousand years old,

Of a man of substance, buried with evidence

To demonstrate his worth, and at his feet a cat,

Interred there with equal care. Let's call the man Neo

(for this was the Neolithic) and the cat, well,

We’ll clearly never know, so let's just call her Aught.

Neo was a warrior, no doubt (you had to be),

And she (Why am I so sure that Aught was a she?)

A mouser and a friend—the first companion cat

Named (now)—who willy-nilly followed him in death.

In the Aceramic Neolithic, humans,

Muggs, my cat, informs me, were still just newly tamed.

*https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/neolithic-cat-burial-in-cyprus-thte-oldest-known-evidence-of-cat-taming

Friday, October 24, 2025

Memory, that Gulfy Sea

“O Duty,

Why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie or a cutie?”

—Ogden Nash

Flog your vermilion

blood, your cold bones streamed

in the copy shop of the mind, cracked cranium, skull exposing

iridescent entrails—

innards of the spirit,

a rainbow of motley and multicolored birds of the soul preening at all azimuths, unashamed of themselves, conscience, lime-feathered; common sense, porphyry, streaked with white crystal; lust, maybe rose madder . . .

but black as midnight, memory—

that gulfy sea.

Note:

An earlier version of this poem—here mercifully abbreviated—appeared in Sparks of Calliope in November 2021 under the title “Mnēmosynē.”

Thursday, October 23, 2025

The First Word

William Blake, The Ancient of Days setting a Compass to the Earth (1794)

“Decíamos ayer . . . "—Miguel de Unamuno

“As we were saying yesterday . . .”

Remember if you would

those voices that you heard

above you in your cradle,

and your very own first word:

“No!”

Miguel de Unamuno: Del sentimiento trágico de la vida /The Tragic Sense of Life (1913)

Miércoles, 22 de octubre de 2025