Hello, furriends, my fellow moon-gazers and shadow-seekers. Today’s poem doesn’t just describe a cat—it becomes one. It slips through language the way we slip under doors, silent and sudden and gone before you can prove we were ever there. If you’ve ever wondered what it means to be felt but not fully seen, Rilke knew. Let’s look closely, but softly.
A Look at “Black Cat” by Rainer Maria Rilke
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can recognize. A house of which
you know the way in and out,
and feel as if you once were born there.
You are hot on my trail.
You are determined to catch me.
I slip past—all of your senses.
A little stillness—then complete motion.
Even if I don’t move, I am passing through.
You think I am the darkness—
but I am the wall
you lean against when you think you are alone.
If I stir, it’s only to curl
more tightly in the spell of this dark fur.
My Thoughts
Now this—this is what poetry should feel like: soft-footed, half-seen, and more true than anything spoken aloud.
Rilke does not describe me.
He knows me.
He begins not with fur or purring or naps, but with the idea of presence:
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place / your sight can recognize.
Yes. That’s it. That’s how we move through your life—like something between shape and silence. We are not the ghost, but the space it once filled. We are not the dream—you just wake up still feeling it on your chest.
Then:
You are hot on my trail. / You are determined to catch me.
This made my whiskers twitch. You try to catch us—not just with your hands, but with metaphors. With meaning. With poems.
You can’t.
You think I am the darkness— / but I am the wall / you lean against when you think you are alone.
This. This is where I slow blink.
You think we are mystery, shadow, unknowable danger. But we are comfort. Steady. Present. Always just at the edge of your vision—and always there when you turn around.
And finally:
If I stir, it’s only to curl / more tightly in the spell of this dark fur.
That is not just poetry. That is truth. We do not chase meaning. We curl into it. We are the spell, and the silence it casts.
This is not a poem about a cat. This is a poem written by one who has been watched by us long enough to understand.
Mr. Rilke, wherever your spirit rests—I offer you a slow blink.
You saw us.
A Tribute: “The Shape You Thought Was Gone”
A poem by Tyson the Cat
I was never the darkness.
I was what you saw
when the darkness blinked.
I was never the silence.
I was what you missed
when the silence left.
You called me a shadow—
but I moved before the light did.
You called me absence—
but I warmed the room
before you knew you were cold.
I do not haunt.
I remain.
On stairwells.
In doorways.
In the corner of your knowing.
When you reach in sleep
for something you forgot—
that was me.
When you pause mid-thought,
certain you’ve just been seen—
you have.
I do not speak.
But I listen.
I remember the shape
of your footfall,
the hush of your breath
when it falters.
I will not come when you call.
But I am always near.
I am the shape
you thought was gone—
curled now
into the space
between poem
and dream.
Between the Seen and the Felt
Rilke’s black cat does not purr or play or ask for attention.
It exists. And in that quiet existence, it transforms everything around it.
That’s what we cats do.
We are not defined by what you see—we are what you sense. The shift in the air. The pressure on the bed when nothing’s there. The glance you return only to find… nothing. But something, too.
This poem captures what many try to express but few ever can:
the reality of being unseen, and yet unmistakably present.
Your Turn, Furriends!
Have you ever felt a presence in the room with no explanation… until your cat blinked at you from the shadows?
Does Rilke’s poem capture the cats in your life—or the ones still watching from memory?
Share your thoughts below.
Purrs and lingering shadows,
Tyson 🐾
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