A Calculated Purr

Here is a Christmas orange.
It contains information,
And you have information

About that. You probably
Already know oranges
Can’t grow in frosty places,

Contain a lot of moisture,
Sugars, and vitamin C,
And, usually, they taste sweet.

You may know this one arrived
In your pretended stocking
Hung by a pretended hearth

As a nod to the long-gone
Half-orphaned grandmother born
Into the Great Depression,

For whom a winter orange
In a genuine stocking
Above a genuine hearth

Was genuinely a gift,
Which she reminded her kids
Of annually, repeating

The gift through years oranges
Were in the fridge all winter,
As if they grew there, so what?

You may know many more things
About this or that orange,
But none of them what it means.

Meaning’s interpretation
Of information in terms
Of something outside of it,

Interpretations ferried
In the living mind between
Many informative things.

It’s a behavior pattern
Creating itself, a purr
From a chest that can’t not purr.

What does this mean? That the cat
This orange reminds you of
Is no longer in your chair.