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Pastimes : Pussy Cats -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (2)	2/15/2003 3:55:25 PM
From: mappingworld	Respond to of 53

Ode to the Cat There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and proud: born in a state of total completion, it sticks to itself and knows exactly what it wants. Men would like to be fish or fowl, snakes would rather have wings, and dogs are would-be lions. Engineers want to be poets, flies emulate swallows, and poets try hard to act like flies. But the cat wants nothing more than to be a cat, and every cat is pure cat from its whiskers to its tail, from sixth sense to squirming rat, from nighttime to its golden eyes. Nothing hangs together quite like a cat: neither flowers nor the moon have such consistency. It's a thing by itself, like the sun or a topaz, and the elastic curve of its back, which is both subtle and confident, is like the curve of a sailing ship's prow. The cat's yellow eyes are the only slot for depositing the coins of night. O little emperor without a realm, conqueror without a homeland, diminutive parlor tiger, nuptial sultan of heavens roofed in erotic tiles: when you pass in rough weather and poise four nimble paws on the ground, sniffing, suspicious of all earthly things (because everything feels filthy to the cat's immaculate paw), you claim the touch of love in the air. O freelance household beast, arrogant vestige of night, lazy, gymnastic and strange, O fathomless cat, secret police of human chambers and badge of burnished velvet! Surely there is nothing enigmatic in your manner, maybe you aren't a mystery after all. You're known to everyone, you belong to the least mysterious tenant. Everyone may believe it, believe they're master, owner, uncle or companion to a cat, some cat's colleague, disciple or friend. But not me. I'm not a believer. I don't know a thing about cats. I know everything else, including life and its archipelago, seas and unpredictable cities, plant life, the pistil and its scandals, the pluses and minuses of math. I know the earth's volcanic protrusions and the crocodile's unreal hide, the fireman's unseen kindness and the priest's blue atavism. But cats I can't figure out. My mind slides on their indifference. Their eyes hold ciphers of gold. ~Pablo Neruda~