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Of Cats and Cardinals

—for George Lionel (2005 – 2025)

You left us at the hour of the owl
When shameless moons are far too loud and bold
__For one so still and cold—
One shrouded in a freshly laundered towel,
One lowered oh so softly in the earth—
___Our whiskered gift,
Our lifeless, purrless pet of boundless worth.
Your grim goodbye has set our sphere adrift.

As daybreak bathes your backyard bed of rest
In beaming rays too fierce for teary eyes,
__A hymn fills sunrise skies
With swirls of notes cascading from a breast
Of plumage preened and puffed to greet the dawn—
___A scarlet blast
Of avian vim above the verdant lawn
You prowled upon before you breathed your last.

This fancy-feathered chorister of cheer,
This gem of crimson-wing perched on my pain,
__This pearl of sweet refrain,
Reminds me of a vision I hold dear:
A lion lying with a fleecy lamb.
___It sounds absurd,
Yet here, in Heaven’s glare, right where I am,
I see you cuddled up beside a bird.

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Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

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32 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I perceive the image clearly of losing a dear pet and burying it in the backyard wrapped in a freshly laundered towel. I have such a beloved pet in my own backyard, but it was a dog that my late in life wife too soon deceased brought with her. The image of the cardinal was striking.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Roy, thank you for your kind words. It’s lovely to hear your beloved pet has a final resting place close to you. There’s something rather special in having a spot to cast our eyes and remember the fun times we’ve shared with our furry bundles of joy.

      Reply
  2. Mark Stellinga

    Susan, we have a Cardinal couple, a Gold Finch couple, and a feisty Blue Jay bachelor now and then visiting a good-sized tree not 50 ft. from our deck. Love it. Been going on for a very long time. The Cardinals call is the the most delightful, hands down. We, too, laid one of our 4-legged children (a Yorkie of 14 people-years), to rest in a small grove on Connie’s dad’s farm where she loved to romp and pester birds and rabbits, which, of course, she never managed to capture, only piss off. Like we do with, ‘Cindy’, we know you and Mike will occasionally pause to peruse the photos you have of your whiskered ‘bird-lover’ 🙂 – and continue to enjoy the Cardinal’s unique, heart-lifting song.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Thank you for your lovely comment, Mark. You paint a vibrant picture of Cindy. Our pets are most certainly a gift. What beautiful birds you’ve mentioned. I am passionate about birds. We too have goldfinches and bluejays. We are lucky enough to live on a migratory bird path and the amount of different species I’ve witnessed over the years has elated me. When I arrived in Texas, the first bird I saw was a cardinal. I’d never seen one before and asked Mike what type of bird it was. His reply was, “It’s a red one”. He had no clue. All these years on, he can name a huge number of Texas and British birds and he can mimic a cardinal and a mockingbird. My passion has rubbed off and I’m impressed!

      Reply
  3. Mike Bryant

    George was a cat, a kitten lost then found one nasty night and taken to a place where people sheltered him. They tried to home him many times but George, I guess, just didn’t fit in places where he should. They tried for years until the day that Susan said that IF we get a cat then he must be a George. And so, I looked for George and found the ad that said, “We have a cat named George that needs a home.”
    Now when the lady led us to that room, filled up with cats, one cat approached us and looked up at Susan. The lady said, that one is George and so we took him home.

    Now George, he was an awkward cat, ruined by six years within four walls. They told us he must always be indoors, and that he’d never learn to play. But Susan said to me, “That seems so odd… I think we’ll take George home but leave their bad advice.”

    As awkward as George was, we kept him and we worked with him. I guess he worked with us to. He became more like a dog within a few weeks. When we walked around the neighborhood, he followed.
    I said that George was a cat, but now I’m not so sure of that.

    He was so different and will always be missed.

    Reply
    • Yael

      That’s an amazing cat story, thank you for sharing! My condolences for your loss, and congratulations to you and Susan for having been entrusted with George Lionel by his Maker for so many happy years. What a privilege this is for all of us, as reading this poem with the comments has been an amazing experience for me too. Thank you Mike and Susan.

      Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Mike, thank you for telling the story of George Lionel so beautifully. And Yael, thank you for your condolences and your wonderful words on my pet poem. George had only one name when we adopted him. He earned his second name “Lionel” down to his spooky ability to croon the word “Hello” in the soulful warble of Lionel Richie. This had to be acknowledged – so George became George Lionel and he rocked his name with feline fabulousness.

      Reply
  4. Brian Yapko

    Before I get to this beautiful and heartrending poem, let me offer my condolences:

    Dear Susan and Mike, I am so sorry for the loss of George Lionel. I know how dearly you loved him and there is no doubt that his best years were spent in your loving care. May his memory be a blessing to you both.

    On to the poem: this funereal poem is absolutely beautiful and heartfelt. I love everything about it. But this only opens my discussion. This poem offers a master class in poetic vision and taste. Susan, many a poet can skillfully use rhyme and alliteration the way you do – you’re superlatively good at it and I learn from you constantly. But that is not in the end what I believe separates your work from that of others. I think it is your amazingly good taste in your poetic decisions. You have an unerring instinct for knowing what works and what doesn’t. You have the gift of a being a great self-critic who knows what she likes but who has a strong eye on what will work for the objective reader as well.

    I’ll tell you something: it is hard to pull off a poem in tribute of an animal’s death and not make it sound either Hallmarky or to have it lapse into bathos. What you’ve written is a tribute poem which is actually “right-sized” – it shows how deeply you loved this gentle creature and what he meant to you. What actually makes the poem work and avoid the traps I’ve mentioned is offered by your incredible poetic eye: the cardinal. You saw the symbolism in the visitation and had the smarts to make use of it. You’ve given George Lionel’s burial an extra dimension (actually, God did this for you) by bringing in a cardinal witness who does so much here: he is, of course, a witness of import. He represents the prey that your fierce boy prowled, but he may also be an angelic presence. Not to mention the churchy connections one may make with a Cardinal! The way your eyes drifted and the way your imagination interpreted what you saw is part of what makes this poem very special indeed.

    That you bring in recollection of the lion and the lamb (with biblical origins from Isaiah) takes it to the next level. And perhaps the churchy/angelic aspect of the cardinal directed your mind in this direction. Irrespective, you work miracles because heavy profundities which could have sunk a poem from being overfreighted, are treated so subjectively, so personally and with such a light touch that we are not left weeping but rather with a mystical feeling of warmth and – oddly — hope. Especially with that final word choice of “cuddled” (rather than “buried with,” “huddled with”, “sleeping with”, et al.)

    This poem, Susan, is an expression of grief which also manages to be a master class in tone and how very, very possible it is to write a poem which could have been maudlin, sentimental or overly subjective and personal, to yet be universalized — to offer sheer beauty and sentiment – without the sentimental. I’m speechless at how perfectly your sense of taste infuses your work. Reconstructing how your excellent taste informs your poems is one of the th ings that makes my critiquing of your poems such a pleasure.

    Once again, deep condolences to you and Mike. With all of these beautiful poetic images and your heartfelt sense of spiritual peace, I feel confident that he is in a better place waiting for you both to join him again.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Brian, thank you for your kind condolences and for your comment, which is so beautiful and so spot on that I read it through tears of joy and relief. I rarely suffer for my art, but this poem was a hard one to write. I wanted to honor the memory of George without cheapening the moment by being heavy-handed – a tough call for one who loves ornate language and alliterative embellishment. It’s so difficult to write something that works when you’re sitting so close to the subject it hurts.

      I believe the cardinal was indeed a nod from God and how could any poet not write about such a glorious gift – I simply had to. If ever there was a perfect death, George Lionel had it. Our pet taught us many lessons but his final one took the sting out of death… I’m sure that poem has already been written, sadly.

      If Mike had written this poem, it would have taken a completely different direction. He was convinced the day-long song of the cardinal was a jocund outburst sparked by a less perilous habitat. My ears and heart were deaf to his Muse’s madness.

      Brian, thank you again for a comment I will treasure, always.

      Reply
  5. Margaret Brinton

    Susan, this is a magnificent eulogy. The flow is so very pleasing as you express your loss.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Margaret, thank you very much indeed. Your poems always flow so beautifully, it is an honor to receive such an encouraging comment.

      Reply
  6. Warren Bonham

    My condolences. I’ve never owned a cat, but I imagine that losing a cat hurts almost as much as losing a dog (I apologize in advance for the tasteless joke). This is a very moving tribute to a long-time friend. Your transcendent imagery and alliteration really shone through with this one.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Warren, I thoroughly appreciate your kind, encouraging, and humorous comment. I love it! It’s a known fact that dogs drool and cats rule – but they both make superb pets.

      Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    Brian has said everything about the delicacy of perception, sentiment, and verbal expression in this poem, and I second all of it. Let me comment instead about its structure.

    The stanzas are pure 17th-century, composed of two quatrains (one ABBA and one ABAB). The third and sixth lines are truncated, trimeter and dimeter respectively, and they serve as intensifiers of the emotion while at the same time controlling its flow, and avoiding the Hallmarky quality of regular and predictable rhythms.

    The first stanza is also in the “melancholic” mode of 17th-century verse, but the following two stanzas are not. There we get the irrepressible voice of Susan — the hope, the optimism, the need to smile and be happy, the sheer positivity and love that motivate everything she writes.

    The old saying that “style proclaims the writer’s self” is confirmed in this beautiful poem.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Joe, thank you very much indeed for your close reading and your wonderful words on a poem I had mixed feelings about sharing. I overcame my hesitancy because I wanted to immortalize George Lionel on my favorite poetry site… and I’m thrilled I made that decision. I am also very moved, humbled, and heartened by your observations on my poetic voice. I am always true to myself and my ideals when I write and the fact that you can see and hear me in my words is the greatest compliment I could ask for as a poet. Joe, I’ve spent a long time trying to find my voice – to have it recognized by you is a gift.

      Reply
  8. Gigi Ryan

    Oh, Susan,
    What a dear poem. I am so sorry for the loss of George Lionel.
    The image of a bird “perched on your pain,” cuts to the heart of a fellow cat lover. And yes, I too believe the cat will cuddle peacefully with the bird someday.
    Gigi

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Gigi, thank you so much for your kind words. Cats are mystical and magical creatures that have a habit of sneaking under your skin and into your heart when you least expect it. I know the cat will cuddle peacefully with the bird someday… in fact, I had a cat in England who befriended a blackbird. The blackbird used to trill to the cat until his feline sensibilities were under a feathered spell. It was a sight to behold.

      Reply
  9. Russel Winick

    Very rarely does a poem take me to a place I’ve never been before, as this one does with both its content and form. Susan and Mike — I’m so sorry for your loss, and so happy that George Lionel brought you so much pleasure. This magnificent poem, and Brian and Joe’s highly enlightening comments above, are to me SCP at its unique best.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Russel, what a wonderful comment. Thank you for your kind condolences and for your beautiful and encouraging words on my poem, and for your appreciation for how the comments play an integral role in the pleasure of the SCP experience. It’s a privilege to belong to this site… and I must say, answering everyone’s unique and heart-touching comments has eased the pain of loss. Thanks again!

      Reply
  10. Margaret Coats

    Condolences to Mike and Susan on the passing of a pet purrsonality, some of whose antics many of us will remember. May your deeper mutual memories continue to glow.

    Reply
  11. Martin Briggs

    English birds may be outwardly less exotic, but this tender and lovely poem revives an experience still raw after more than ten years. It is deeply, deeply moving, Susan.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Martin, thank you very much for your heart-touching words. I am so very sorry for your loss.

      Reply
  12. jd

    A beautiful poem, Susan, as very aptly described by all above. The back story is much appreciated also, Mike. George lived a long and happy life. My sympathy to you both for a most painful loss.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      jd, I thoroughly appreciate your kind and beautiful comment. George was the most nervous cat I’d ever met. He was five years old when we adopted him and scared of every little noise. He was terrified of men and bonded instantly with me but not with Mike… until Mike took over the feeding routine and sang to George as he fed him. The two became firm friends and George joined in with the singing at every mealtime. He had never been outside before and never played. That soon changed. He became the king of the backyard and his playful inner kitten surfaced. jd, you’re right – George Lionel had a happy life.

      Reply
  13. Cynthia L Erlandson

    I’m sorry to be a latecomer to this funeral; but I agree with Gigi that the bird perched on your pain is the most exquisite line; and I agree with everyone above about the brilliant way you have avoided hallmarkiness with a subject that is normally quite prone to it, and have created a poem of profundity with the cat and the cardinal.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Cynthia, thank you for your wonderful comment. I’m thrilled you like my “pain” line and thoroughly appreciate your close reading. As I said above, it was a tough one to write, and I’m blown away by the reaction. Thanks again!

      Reply
  14. Jeff Eardley

    Susan, what a lovely memorial poem to your happy, furry friend who must have given you guys so much pleasure in his long life. I feel honoured to have once written a poem about him. Best wishes from over here.

    Reply
  15. Morrison Handley-Schachler

    This is a beautiful poem, Susan. It must be so sad to lose a loved companion after many years. I especially like the image of the lion lying down with the lamb alongside the image of the cardinal by the cat’s grave.

    Reply
    • Susan Jarvis Bryant

      Morrison, thank you most kindly for your heartwarming and lovely words. I take great comfort in nature, and I’m often rewarded with the solace I seek.

      Reply

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