I am a cat;
Delicately I tread;
Delicately I avoid this puddle.
(Dampness I abhor.)
It is evening, I am conscious of myself;
Of my beauty, of my wisdom;
My appeal:
My appeal to those humans.
I am of a great tradition;
I am of the East -
To my kind the Sphinx can propound no riddle.
The Nile,
Isis, Osiris,
Night and mystery -
All those things -
Those things humans affect concerning us,
Are known to me;
(Who are you calling 'Pussy!' 'Pussy!'
Fondness does not fit my mood;
I ignore, I deride it).
I am a cat.
I lean back a little;
My tail twitches;
Flickers the fur along my spine;
And effortless
I am over the wall.
(I am always in training.)
Down I plunge,
Among the salmon tins,
Emptied receptacles of condensed milk,
And shattered crockery -
But I am seen!
I am pursued!
Stones clatter around me-
(Boys I abhor!)
I run, leaping with flattened ears,
And ridiculous anguished gait;
My tail thickening;
I am ignoble, absurd;
I have shame -
But it is over -
Slacken and crouch:
Gaze back with exaggerated trepidity,
Then resume a leisurely walking,
But now:
My head settles a little into my neck;
My eyes expand;
I slink, I prowl,
With sloping haunches.
I am a-field:
I know nothing of the Nile;
I have forgotten the salmon tins;
But I remember the taste of young rabbits
Quivering;
And fledgling partridges
I will hunt;
I will glut me;
I am a wild thing,
Indigenous,
Here in dark woods.
To-morrow at dawn
I will return;
Thread through the broken pots
And empty tins,
Re-leap the wall,
And languid, debauched,
A roue exhausted,
Will silently stretch my tiny mouth,
Parched, thirsty from hunting,
Appealing to Martha for milk.
And then to repose,
Day long,
Sun warmed,
It may be on window ledge hunched,
Or circled on cushions,
Rewinding springs for the night.
NOTE: Although the cat appeals to Martha for milk, it may well have been the less alliterative Bertha - the name of Ashley's wife.