In Pursuit of Poetry

March 13, 2020 - Rainer Maria Rilke - Black Cat

March 13
Given that it is Friday the 13th, I have chosen a poem with a superstitious vein. Black cats are thought to be bad luck, but I don't believe that. Just like I don't believe that today is bad luck. In fact, today has been a pretty good day. I managed to get my writer's website up and launched. It still needs work, but I have moved into the realm of having a little piece of the internet for myself.
Enjoy.

Black Cat
Rainer Maria Rilke - 1875-1926

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.