in the company of felix domesticus fur-clad observers -- whiskers, fluffy tails, pointy ears and all I have long sat their stillness disturbed only by the vibrations of their joy a little petting and instantly they preen, the fastidious task of removing human trace from their luxurious coats sit with them, these sentinels guarding the passageways to ataraxia, and you learn how to see, the precise disposition requisite of a soul on its way to rapture of your eternity take for them an epsilon and it will be returned to you in lessons of ambivalence, unquestionable affection and calm restraint and curled on an old chair they sleep their lives away making us cozy and warm filling our ears with gentle purring [7-XII-21]