... for my cat Annie (RIP) a poem by Brian Kelly

Feb 2-28, 2023



"Perhaps no one who opens a tin can notices, but tin itself is known to cry. Some say tin screams when it is bent, the sound of its crystals abruptly jammed together. Some say this sound is like a plaintive meow.

Opening a can of cat food in the presence of your cat, perhaps the cry of the tin can’s lid is mistaken for your cat’s meow.
As a symbol the tin can is often depicted with its lid aloft. Alas it is the universal symbol of garbage, and depicted as such on anti-litter highway signs all along the Trans-Canada Highway. This is unfair, as so-called tin cans are actually made of recyclable aluminum. Poem and its fellow sculptures are another interpretation of tin cans, more fair, regardless of what they are made.
Ornamental as any of the above facts may be, the importance of the tin can lid is its beauty. The circular tin can lid is a primal harmonious."
Excerpted from a short, short story by Jeanne Randolph