A Singer’s Notes by Keith Kibler 31: Black Ink

Bad things have been raging in the world. Still, today I see my old cat rolling in the sun. I begin now to think about the powerlessness of beauty in a different way. Hear Shakespeare how he says it in Sonnet 65:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? ......

...unless this miracle have might:
That as black ink my love may still shine bright.

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Cat Colony, Largo Argentina, Rome. Photo © 2011 Michael Miller.

Black ink... We must, because we can, read. We must read words like light, dark, black. The cat has trust. When she first locates the sun with her eyes, she must wait for it to warm her with a kind of trust. When this happens, she starts to roll, a slow religious roll that has an evenness. 

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller