Animals in America

Animals are inspirational. They don’t know how to lie. They are natural forces.

Charles Bukowski

We are surrounded by various, beautiful creatures.

Real, artificial, and - all of them - magical.

I'm looking for them, and here they are - in every "corner" of America.

These photos are made in:

Boston, Massachusetts (New England Aquarium),

Chapel Hill, North Carolina (University of North Carolina),

Charleston, South Carolina (James Island, Folly Beach),

Durham, North Carolina (Duke University),

Las Vegas, Nevada (Mandalay Bay Hotel),

NYC, New York (Central Park, Empire State Building, private household),

Princeton Meadows, New Jersey (private households),

Raleigh, North Carolina (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences),

San Francisco, California (California Academy of Sciences).

cats and you and me

by Charles Bukowski

the Egyptians loved the cat
 were often entombed with it
 instead of with the child
 and never with the dog.
 
 and now
 here
 good people with
 the souls of cats
 are very few
 
 yet here and now many
 fine cats
 with great style
 lounge about
 in the alleys of
 the universe.
 
 about
 our argument tonight
 whatever it was
 about
 and
 no matter
 how unhappy
 it made us
 feel
 
 remember that
 there is a
 cat
 somewhere
 adjusting to the
 space of itself
 with a calm
 and delightful
 ease.
 
 in other words
 magic persists with
 or without us
 no matter how
 we may try to
 destroy it
 
 and I would
 destroy the last chance for
 myself
 that this might always
 continue.

cats and you and me by Charles Bukowski, from The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps. © Black Sparrow Press, 2001.