Rich Kendall’s Ode to Lily

[Sena]

"Years ago I (Lynda Dahl) told my friend Rich Kendall of an odd occurrence with our kitten Lily. At least twice that I noticed, Lily walked our inside staircase to the second floor, stopped after the last stair ... and within seconds disappeared. I didn't see her disappear; she simply was no longer there when I blinked a couple times and refocused on the staircase. Rich wrote the following poem in Lily's honor, and after you read the last line, consider this: Although Rich didn't know it, at birth we'd named her Tiger Lily, but within weeks dropped "Tiger" from her name.

Rich Kendall's Ode to Lily

Lily comes and Lily goes
But how it happens no one knows
Gingerly she climbs the stairs
And disappears to other lairs

She'll wake beside a sleeping fawn
And with the bluebirds greet the dawn
Then climb the crimson hills of Mars
Pick daffodils on emerald stars
Above the tallest oaks she'll fly
Where rainbow roads link earth and sky
As Lynda asks in true dismay
"Did Lily cross your path today?"

And Lily similes oh so smug
It's so much fun to pull the rug
Of space and time beneath their nose
And leap from rooftops past the crows

But as the night grows damp with fog
Lily sleeps by burning log
And vanishes through timeless seams
Where tigers' paws imprint her dreams.

(Richard Kendall, member of Jane's ESP class, is the author of The Road to Elmira and Stories I Never Told Grandma.)" (from "Living a Safe Universe, Vol. 3: A Book for Seth Readers (Living a Safe Universe: A Book for Seth Readers)" by Lynda Madden Dahl)

Kindle edition: https://amzn.eu/6zTFNcX

This is a phenomenon predicted by quantum physics:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

("Stories I Never Told Grandma" by Rich Kendall is out of print. A second-hand copy is on sale on Amazon UK for £45.00!)

[Deb]

Great poem, Rich really had a lot of talents and was very intuitive. I'd not read that one before, and nice tie-in with Schrodinger's cat theory.

Rich took "Stories I Never Told Grandma" out of publication because almost all of its content was published in "A Creative Journey Seth Inspired" and "Potpourri." I have a digital copy of "Stories" (not Kindle version but for Kindle Previewer, an Kindle Publishing software) and the only things I saw in it that were not republished were a couple of interviews of Rich. I'd be glad to share it with anyone if they are interested, the Previewer software is free.

Rich wrote a poem about Elmira that I really liked, it has a "feel" to it. I'm assuming the "plasticene dream creatures" alludes to Jane's water creature, seen outside her kitchen window. I wonder if he wrote this after Jane died? "The hole in the universe that once opened there has now closed" makes me think so. Maybe Mary would know. The "Ghost" would have to be Seth. That last stanza gave me goose bumps.

Welcome To Elmira,
Once A Ghost Town,

Where strange winds carried the Chemung River beyond its banks, and plasticene dream creatures prowled the streets looking for someone to scare.

Welcome To Elmira,
Once A Ghost Town,

Where vowels and syllables stored in the attics of the mind for centuries escaped through battered old window frames, locks having rusted away from countless invisible assaults of air.

Welcome To Elmira,
Once A Ghost Town,
Where I once conversed with Kings and Queens, and 
walked through corridors lit with a thousand candles, each one holding a memory still waiting to be born.

Welcome To Elmira,
Once A Ghost town,

But no longer; for the restaurants and bars and five o'clock rush hour traffic left no room for the ghosts.
The hole in the universe that once opened there has now closed.

But one day,
When the mind gets too crowded with its own magic
That hole will open up again,
And when that day arrives,
Elmira will become a ghost town once again.

[Sena]

Rich took "Stories I Never Told Grandma" out of publication because almost all of its content was published in "A Creative Journey Seth Inspired" and "Potpourri."

Deb, thanks for that information. "A Creative Journey Seth Inspired" is on Kindle Unlimited from Amazon UK, so I downloaded it. "Stories I Never Told Grandma" seems to me a more appealing title!