To A Cat Poem by Jorge Luis Borges

I am envious of anyone who can come up with such a way to say how quiet a cat is ('Mirrors are not more silent') . And how better to contrast the coldness of the cat's unrevealing eyes ('nor the creeping dawn more secretive') with the emotions that pour from a dog's every look? Even the nighttime prowlings of my cat is done as if our basement were 'a place bounded like a dream.'

You weave a mood! You've caught the spirit of a beautiful animal! Very original imagery and thought.

What a great description about a cat. 'You have accepted, since that long forgotten past, the love of the distrustful hand.' I have one of these creatures

Cat's careful activity so ancient in nature like Ganges river, smooth as dream and silent as night allowing caress by hand of the master are wonderfully expressed here by the poet! Nice poem to read!

Just for fun, I will attempt to translate this more literally from the spanish: They are not more silent the mirrors nor more furtive the adventuress dawn you are, under the moon, that panther that is given to us to make out from afar by indescribable works of a decree devine, we look for you vainly more remote than the Ganges and the west wind yours is the loneliness, yours the secret your back consenting to the sullen caresses of my hand. You've allowed, from that eternity that is already oblivion, love from the distrustful hand. In another time you are. You are the owner of a closed realm like a dream. I'm not saying this is the 'real' version of the poem and definately not the more refined, it's just more word for word than the version above. Interesting to see how much things change in translation.

smokey came to my kitchen door deciding she would own me I tried to resist but I became her slave that`s a cat

Cat got many lives and so is this poem. It wanders all along with the deaf echo of the wind. Let's not wake the slumber of its verse before the cat shades its fur.

A wonderfully suggestive poem describing the indescribable: somewhere we have long departed from, but which haunts us sometimes with an almost physical sense of its presence.