Come here little one, nestle into my arms for a while. I know you never liked me but I did always take care of you didn't I? It was I who rescued you, remember? So feisty you were then, not like your siblings you ran, hid. hissed, scratched You were tough to catch but I was patient to feed you when you were too weak to eat and extirpated the legion fleas your blood-bathed little body housed in wordless pain Still, you never trusted me even now, you'd rather bolt after all these years when I've been only kind gentle, forgiving It is your nature, I understand the wiring of animal instinct the wilderness in your heart And the memory of whatever it was that was done to you by the likes of me before our first encounter We do things, I'm sorry to say to your kind, to many other kinds we harbour cruelty and malice in our civilised, calculating hearts and the debts we owe have piled that an epoch of this world would pass before we might be rinsed But for you my little one my heart has always been clear For those eyes, colour of the Finnish skies for white socks and silver tips the markings of the lynx and the prusten of your tranquility there was always only longing Now you ail, and instinct says in a corner hide, by yourself wait for darkness We understand it the same the inevitable solitude of the soul the futility of the life experience the strength to face what is But let me hold you awhile and tell you in my foreign tongue that I was always there and would give anything to keep you, if only a little longer 16-VI-2011