They are in my dreams, an urgent reminder that needs to be heeded.

Their little eyes are innocent.  Blue, sometimes gold, sometimes green, they reflect the light of the garden, the patio and our neighbor’s bay window where they tumble with glee and the excitement of new life.  Exploration, discovery and play is their world.

They’ve lived under their mother’s careful watch for almost eight weeks, learning how to play with each other and the bits and pieces of leftovers from the garden’s summer.  When they are not napping together under the raised garden bench, they spend hours chasing the brown leaves from the birch tree or watching a bug crawl over the garden hose.

They are all black with tiny specks of white fur as afterthought embellishments.

There is such a joy with which they go about being kittens. Such guiltless living, learning from play to become what they will become.  And that is why I am worried.

Yesterday I enticed one to stay and play with a fuzzy ribbon on the end of a pole.  I have to find a way to introduce them to people – and I hope I am not too late.  I really don’t want them to be categorized as feral and rejected as pets.

They know nothing about a future that is so uncertain.  It has been sunny days and adventures under the shed or the house or the big patch of ferns in the neighbor’s yard.  It has been mama cat and bits of food on the deck and cool water under the bench.

They are getting older.  The weather is getting cooler.

The rescues are full.  Even a promise of payment upfront for their vet bills and shelter doesn’t seem to matter. No one wants them.

Where will they go?

And there is their mother, a fecund female who has produced four litters in two years.  My lectures about abstinence haven’t worked.  Trapping and spaying is the only answer, a strategy that is apparently not part of my skill set.   I’ve tried many times and trapped my neighbor’s cat as well as a few of our own.   She has ignored traps baited with rotisserie chicken, very stinky cheese and sardines.  I’ve even offered $200 to a gal if she would trap mama cat. What, I wonder, was this little cat in another life?  A feline Houdini? One wonders.

While I plot yet another run at trapping and finding a veterinarian who will spay her, I have to consider these kittens.  They haunt my dreams.

Maybe I am more concerned than I should be, seeing more in their existence than I should?  For whatever reason, I care.

We had a wonderful big orange tabby cat for 18 years.  He lived in two worlds, one of which I could only guess at.  With sight and hearing beyond mine, he was a connection to that other world.   He brought us so much joy.

We never thought that any cat could take Kiki’s place, but … what about six formerly feral cats who come and go as they wish, who are affectionate and canny as they inveigle us to give them cat treats and sleep on our bed?  It’s not the same, but close.

The kittens are evocative of the meaning in one of my favorite poems … what Wordsworth meant in his poem, “Ode On the Intimations of Mortality,” about children coming to us trailing glory, innocence, full of heaven until the world toughens it, steals it away.

These kittens are exactly like small children of any species without the eye rolls, sketchy friends and demands for electronic equipment.  I want to give them a chance to bring their joy and affection to others, to live out the promise of a life where they bring their gifts to the lives of humans.

There still remains the little heated area that we created under our window seat if all else fails, but they should have more, be more.

There must be someone for them, someone, somewhere.  Please.