Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Today's poem - The Cat by Lawrence Ferlinghetti


1973 photo


The Cat
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The cat
licks its paw and
lies down in
the bookshelf nook
She
can lie in a
sphinx position
without moving for so
many hours
and then turn her head
to me and
rise and stretch
and turn
her back to me and
lick her paw again as if
no real time had passed
It hasn't
and she is the sphinx with
all the time in the world
in the desert of her time
The cat
knows where flies die
sees ghosts in the motes of air
and shadows in sunbeams
She hears
the music of the spheres and
the hum in the wires of the houses
and the hum of the universe
in interstellar spaces
but
prefers domestic places
and the hum of the heater

5 comments:

  1. Coney Island of the Mind is still one of my all times favorite books of poetry. Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg and Kerouac helped open my mind.

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  2. And it is great that he's still alive! I was going to post a more recent picture, but I love that older one. I wasn't so wild for K., I liked G. a bit, but really like(d) F. the best.

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  3. This is one of my favorite cat poems. I wish Juliette would hear it and realize that sitting sphinx-like at some distance would be preferable (at least to this reader) to sitting sphinx-like in the middle of the page being read! I swear she can be two rooms away and still hear a book being opened. :)

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  4. Oooh, may I borrow this to use with a couple of Frankie pics?

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  5. Les, anything to get you to post more Frankie pictures!

    Marcia, I love her name. Cats are so amazing.

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