My valiant helper, a small-sized tiger <br />Sleeps sweetly on my desk, by the computer, <br />Unaware that you insult his tribe. <br /> <br />Cats play with a mouse or with a half-dead mole. <br />You are wrong, though: it's not out of cruelty. <br />They simply like a thing that moves. <br /> <br />For, after all, we know that only consciousness <br />Can for a moment move into the Other, <br />Empathize with the pain and panic of a mouse. <br /> <br />And such as cats are, all of Nature is. <br />Indifferent, alas, to the good and the evil. <br />Quite a problem for us, I am afraid. <br /> <br />Natural history has its museums, <br />But why should our children learn about monsters, <br />An earth of snakes and reptiles for millions of years? <br /> <br />Nature devouring, nature devoured, <br />Butchery day and night smoking with blood. <br />and who created it? Was it the good Lord? <br /> <br />Yes, undoubtedly, they are innocent, <br />Spiders, mantises, sharks, pythons. <br />We are the only ones who say: cruelty. <br /> <br />Our consciousness and our conscience <br />Alone in the pale anthill of galaxies <br />Put their hope in a humane God. <br /> <br />Who cannot but feel and think, <br />Who is kindred to us by his warmth and movement, <br />For we are, as he told us, similar to Him. <br /> <br />Yet if it is so, the He takes pity <br />On every mauled mouse, every wounded bird. <br />Then the universe ofr him is like a Crucifixion. <br /> <br />Such is the outcome of your attack on the cat: <br />A theological, Augustinian grimace, <br />Which makes difficult our walking on this eart.<br /><br />Czeslaw Milosz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mrs-professor-in-defense-of-my-cat-s-honor-and-not-only/
