Dreamt last night I was a vagabond, looking like the "Tea for the Tillerman" man, with a red beard and floppy hat, wandering the war torn countryside with two kittens in my care.

Things happened. There was a storm or a flood or something and we were separated.

Finally, I found one of the kittens, half frozen to death, and I broke up a little clay tablet in the shape of an egg, and it gave him warmth. But he wouldn't look at me.

Then another kitten appeared, but it wasn't the one we were looking for, and I thought, "well, the cycle of life continues," wondering where the other had gone.

And in my mind's eye I saw the whole countryside and then I saw him, suspended in a puddle, as if in mid-leap, but with his head down just below the level of the water.

I woke up and realized two things:

1. Small things need protecting.

2. I'd failed in that.