The Cats of Dubrovnik

Commanding the steps, the higher and lower ground, the alley and piazza, from positions of imperious distain, the cats of Dubrovnik do not mewl and they do not beg, but rather deign to be occasionally stroked. Clinging to the sides, they live in shadowlands of walls and wars, avoiding the bright reflections made by souvenir shops on smooth stones when storms pass over and over again. Rebuilt, remade, renewed as medieval imagination, photographs of martyrs fade to white, disappearing like rubble and holes and cats.