All the animals of the world were imperfect,
long-tailed, dismal in the head.
Little by little they composed themselves,
becoming a landscape, gaining spots, grace, flight.
The cat, only the cat, appeared complete
and proud: born completely finished,
it walks alone and knows what it wants.
Man wants to be a fish and a bird,
the snake would rather have wings,
the dog is a lost lion,
the engineer wants to be a poet,
the fly studies the swallow,
the poet tries to imitate the fly,
but the cat
wants only to be cat,
and every cat is cat
from whiskers to tail,
from hunches to live rat,
from night to its yellow eyes.
There’s no entity
like it, neither moon nor flower
has its construction: it’s a solitary thing
like the sun or a topaz, and the supple line
of its contour, firm and delicate, is like
the prow line of a ship.
Its yellow eyes leave only a crack
to stuff the coins of the night.
Oh little emperor without globe,
conqueror without country,
tiny tiger of the living room, sultan
groom of a sky of erotic tiles,
the wind of love in the open air
you demand when you pass
and pose, placing four delicate feet
on the floor, sniffing, doubting
every earthly thing, since everything
is disdainful for the cat’s immaculate feet.
Oh independent beast of the home,
arrogant remnant of night,
lazy, gymnastic and alien,
most profound cat, secret police of dwellings,
emblem of a lost velvet,
there’s probably no enigma
to your manner, perhaps you’re not mysterious,
the entire world knows you and you belong
to the least mysterious inhabitant,
perhaps everyone believes he’s the master,
owner, sister of the cat, companion,
colleague, disciple or friend
of the cat.
I don’t know the cat.
I know everything, life and its archipelago,
the sea and the unfathomable city,
botany, the harem and its excess,
virtues and flaws of mathematics,
the world’s volcanic veins,
the unreal carapace of crocodiles,
the hidden goodness of chocolate,
the blue atavism of priests,
but I cannot figure out the cat.
My reasoning slips before its indifference,
its eyes with their golden numbers.
(Ode to the Cat - a translation of Pablo Neruda's Oda al Gato) Translated from the Spanish by Linh Dinh.
|
Visitors to this Per-dt
