37 Avoiding the issue

Reading:

Avoiding the issue

‘She has also written a book about cats which, as far as I am
concerned casts a shadow on even the most illustrious name.’
Philip Larkin (on Stevie Smith)

Since I have no name, illustrious or otherwise
I’m left quite free to eulogise my cat without
Attracting scorn from men of letters. (To fend off 
Mandarin critique, my acclaim will also be oblique.) 
In any case Larkin’s hidebound dictum must leave out
Much celebrated work by those that he without doubt,
Admired elsewhere. Old Possum wrote poetry
About cats under a false name of course, 
A wise precaution if you’ve become a literary
Giant of unswerving seriousness of purpose.
And if poor Kit Smart’s half-cracked hymn of praise
To Jeoffrey was too much for Larkin’s irreligious
Inclination, he’d not stinted admiration for Gavin Ewart’s 
Not-quite parody of Smart in praise of Matty.
And this where our own cat joins that gallery
Of literary avatars who’ve gone before. For, in Putney,
Where we lived when he was born, he endured the tender
Mercies of that self-same vet who practiced in Dealtry Road
And neutered Matty. So he too eschewed wickedness
For all he stalked the very streets that Matty’d roamed
Before him. He later took to country life with eagerness,
A scourge of mice, voles and on one occasion a toad.
I shall not enumerate his many virtues here. Instead
Please see the encomia in the literature cited. For he stood head
And shoulders taller than those adulated predecessors. 
We buried him at Easter time beneath a white magnolia tree. 
Our grandson Ben aged five, made a terra-cotta plaque in memory.