Say you want a cat. A dog's too easy,
would wag when wag is inappropriate,
and slobber on the guests. You'll take the cat,
so different and strange, it drives you crazy,
its shiftlessness, its ins-and-outs, its chi.
You call. It does not come. Is this a pet,
this Dharma bum? You say you can't accept
its vacant gaze, its scorn, who yearned to be
at home with feral grace, with all you're not.
But you're a Body safely locked from Mind,
that Problem no Mind solves. This point's defined
for you by Puss, who's not the pet you thought
but Otherness, one owned by God, or none.
Cat sleeps for hours, wants out. A job well done.