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Friday 31 October 2008

The Prize Cat

Franz Marc, Two Cats

This is the day when Cat Musings, usually a rather doggy site, celebrates its namesake, the Cat. This is on behalf of T., and since I can't put flowers on his grave, this year it's a poem.

The Prize Cat

E.J. Pratt (1882-1964)

Pure blood domestic, guaranteed,
Soft-mannered, musical in purr,
The ribbon had declared the breed,
Gentility was in the fur

Such feline culture in the gads
No anger ever arched her back--
What distance since those velvet pads
Departed from the leopard's track!

And when I mused how Time had thinned
The jungle strains within the cells,
How human hands had disciplined
Those prowling optic parallels;

I saw the generations pass
Along the reflex of a spring,
A bird had rustled in the grass,
The tab had caught it on the wing:

Behind the leap so furtive-wild
Was such ignition in the gleam,
I thought an Abyssinian child
Had cried out in the whitethroat's scream.

4 comments:

BooksPlease said...

Beautiful! It's the wildness in cats I love as much as their beauty and style. Domesticated they may be but they are also killers - even my gentle Lucy Cat still kills mice - birds are a bit beyond her now!

Jodie Robson said...

I agree entirely. Our last cat was so gentle with people, and the terror of every rabbit in the area. It was amazing to see such a tiny creature march home with a full-grown rabbit, and even more amazing to see the snake act which followed, as she fitted it all within her trim little frame!

Hannah Velten said...

Lovely tribute to T.
And loved the painting - Marc painted my favourite ever 'Yellow Cow' - she's simply beautiful!

Jodie Robson said...

I must find the yellow cow painting!