Don't chop off our fingers! - Sterling's Poetic Mewsings

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, tired and weary,
On the cat tree that rests between rooms three and room four -
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As if someone was gently rapping, rapping their paws upon the floor.
"'Tis a fellow Kitty," I muttered, "rapping gently upon the floor -
Only this and nothing more."

A distincly I recall, twas just last year before the fall:
And each dying leaf fluttered into the earth's maw.
Eagerly I sought the couch - vainly I had planned to slouch
Against the leather arm - I vouch! There's nothing better for the claw!
For the rare and wonderful moment when you've stretched your aching claw
Upon the nearest thing you saw!

And the tough yet smooth improvement on the sofa my owners used to have
Thrilled me - filled me with a paw sensation never felt before!
So that now, instead of using merely carpet I would stretch unto the parapet
Of this glorious leather couch arm! Surely placed for me to adore?
This wonderful recliner I shall scratch, stretching upwards from the floor!
I shall scratch it ever more!

Remembering this, my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore:
For the truth is I was napping on this cat tree, and your rapping
Such a gentle, strange tapping, it aroused me from my snore
but I was scarcely sure I heard you" - there I looked down at the floor;
Tiggy was sitting 'pon my shore.

This ragged tabby-Persian was beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Though his presence, the meaning I could never have forsaw.
Till he started then to speak and said, "our future, it is bleak,
When human owners wish to tweak us, change the purpose of our paws.
They see our very beings, our physical joys as merely flaws,
And they cut off precious claws!"

Tiggy, sitting lonely on the floor below spoke only
of his claws, and in their absence how his heart was broke and sore.
For he held them up to stare - there were no points among the hair
of his pawpads, and there; that's something I could sypathise with more -
This grim and ghastly operation forced upon my friend upon the floor
It shocked me to the core!

Why? I sat engaged in guessing and yet no words could be expressing
My anger at the humans who would gulloutine cat fingers - oh the gore!
And as for me? The sofa I had scratched, but suddenly I was unlatched
And before things could be patched - I was thrown out of the door!
"Could you provide me with some other wonderous scratcher?" I implored?
The human answered: "nevermore!"

"Be that then our word of parting, you big fiend!" I shrieked upstarting -
"Get thee back home to your sofa which you've chosen over me!
I am a living being and you're obviously not seeing:
You could have simply taught me not to claw your dumb settee.
You'd rather chuck me out of your home than listen to my plee!
You don't deserve a kitty!

As for Tiggy, his operation removed the wonderous sensation
We get when, upon a substitute tree we stretch our claw!
For you cannot help agreeing that no feeling human being
would ever dream of seeing someone mutilate our paw.
Of cutting the last joint away and deforming our great paw,
As if it was a flaw!