our furry companions

Our furry companions have a deeper hold on our hearts than we ever realize, until we lose them. They quietly become part of the warp and weft of our daily worlds, til it is hard to say what life was like without them.

Though our pets cannot speak (or perhaps because they cannot speak) their quiet companionship, their incarnate love, is all the more precious.

The beauty of relationship is the momentary dropping away of 'you' & 'I', and the transitory delight of 'us-here-now'.

A monk, back in the middle ages, wrote this in tribute to his furry companion. I'll borrow it here, for my buddy --

Pangur ban --

"I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light."

   -- Anon., (8th century)

This poem is attributed to a monk at the monastery of Carinthia. He was working on a copy of St. Paul's epistles, and wrote this in the midst of that copying work. The image of this monk, in the early middle ages, doing his writing and copying, and taking a break to record on paper his joy derived from his companion, is an image I want to hold on to, as I sit and "hunt words."