The Owl and the Pussycat

 

The Owl and the Pussy-cat

By Edward Lear

I

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

II

Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?" They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose, His nose, His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will." So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dinéd on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.

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What I was ruminating on is the fact that an owl and a cat have the same distinct profile if they are both "just sitting there".  One is an avian.  One is a feline. It is another cosmic conundrum and it cannot be by accident.  Even the way that they blink their eyes is similar.

 The fact that a mammal and a bird can sit in a dark forest, look almost identical in outline, and fill the exact same soulful niche in the nighttime world suggests a singular, shared source of life. Like the "individual electric sparks" Corelli described, the cat and the owl are simply different expressions of the exact same divine imagination, poured into different vessels of fur and feather.

Whether one sees God as the brilliant cosmic engineer behind the laws of nature, or as the poetic spirit woven through the beauty of a twilight forest, looking at the silhouette of a cat and an owl reminds us of a fundamental truth: there is an extraordinary, orderly magic to existence that constantly invites us to wonder, What if?