Poem

I Would Be a Cat  by Roberta Tennant
(A Transmigrative Dialogue Between Two Souls)

 

The First:  

I'd lie all day before a fire,

on a slithery silky cushion, 

eat milk and sugar and flesh. 

My purring would be 

a sought-for favor, 

gained by sensual attentions to my jeweled eyes, 

and by stroking me, for mutual pleasure 

and for human joy at caressing a thing 

inscrutably content. 

 

My ageless, sexless days would be balmed 

in warmth, watching and wordless thought. 

Some hours I would stretch, 

extending, gaping, till you'd think 

that I would snap my tendons, burst my heart. 

At other hours I would make myself cat-clean, 

and others I would posture on my stomach, 

clawless pads drawn into my fur, 

and I would demand a silence, absolute. 

At these times my eyes would remind men 

of something primal, of cats in lapis lazuli 

sleeping under Gizeh's sands. 

I would see them turn away, uneasy. 

But always they would come back, 

compelled to play speaking worshiper to my mute goddess. 

 

The Second:

 

There is a board fence outside 

and every night, the cats slip by, 

different cats, averse to silk and light. 

Joining this procession through the dim night leaves, 

I would walk in places where no one else can walk, 

except the small felt-furred mice, 

to whom it is a fearful path. 

The branches and the moss would bear me up, 

floating like a painted cat 

stalking a bird in far-off, ancient Crete. 

 

I would pad in exultant silence through narrow cracks 

whose rough edges would just admit my flanks, 

or bound up dwindling paths till they become 

trails in a forest of emerald fern. 

Starry flowers, mottled pebbles, 

and ephemeral glass-winged flies, 

only these miniatures would be real to me. 

And O most blissful would be the beatific night! 

I would stalk through bayberry leaves at sundown, 

ring wolfsbane and hyacinth around my neck. 

And as the last light darkened, 

the sleek ruff of my shoulders would bristle 

in anticipation's lovely fear. 

 

Stone steps and dripping, phosphorescent boards 

would be my singing places. I would run 

swiftly over danger-open spots 

of moon paled meadow. 

My eyes like drops of cold green glass 

suspended in the murk, I would spring across shadows, 

dance after white witch moths and fallen stars. 

I would be 

the spirit of the bleak and icy black, 

the fair sweet night, 

and switch my dark tail in Hecate's bewildered face. 

                                     Copyright © 2000 by R. Tennant