Little Cat Feet

"THE fog comes on little cat feet. " is a fragment from a Carl Sandburg poem I half remember from childhood. It's a textbook perfect image with the staying power of an advertising jingle.

I think of quiet cat feet when I think of global warming.

Now Iraq, Iraq's a big noisy deal, especially if you have a son or daughter over there. It's the loudest deal in town, dragging your heart and attention toward it's exploding center.

The warming is a quiet crisis that comes to us in the pale blue shades of ice dripping and changing into water.

Iraq is the red, beating heart of human suffering. Children are crying. Women raped. Every day men are found on the street with drill holes in their bodies. These horrors are punctuated by daily car bombs. How can we look anywhere but there?

When will we feel the water seeping into our shoes?