Greetings once again, furriends. Today we’re diving into a poem that doesn’t meow—it prowls. Quiet. Cool. Smooth as a tail flick and twice as sharp. I’m talking about “The Cat” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti—a poem that knows cats not as cute companions, but as quiet observers, agile acrobats, and masters of their own mystery.
Let’s paw through it.
A Look at “The Cat” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The cat
licks its paws 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 motes of air
and shadows of sunbeams
She hears
the music of the spheres and
the hum in the wires of houses
and the hum of the universe
in interstellar spaces
but
prefers domestic places
and the hum of the heater
My Thoughts
I’ll be honest: I loved this one before the second line even finished.
The cat licks its paw—
A strong opening. Bold. Relatable. Timeless.
Ferlinghetti writes like someone who has watched. Not just lived with a cat (no one really owns us anyway), but observed one. Closely. Quietly. Patiently. And what he captures here is that unbothered grace we carry into every moment.
We don’t leap—we descend into air.
We don’t walk—we saunter across oceans.
We don’t make noise—we exist at the edge of the world and don’t tell you what we see.
It’s not dramatized. It’s precise.
This poem isn’t about a housecat. It’s about a myth.
A drifting spirit with whiskers and soft footfalls, moving through human spaces without ever fully belonging to them.
As a black cat myself, I approve of this dreamlike quality. Ferlinghetti doesn’t try to pin the cat down. He lets the cat drift. Shimmer. Disappear.
Just like we do.
A Tribute: “Between the Pages”
A poem by Tyson the Cat
The bookshelf breathes me.
Dust motes settle where I sat.
A poem forgets me.
The lamp flicks its tail.
I press the night with silence
and vanish, unread.
You say I was here.
But the page doesn’t wrinkle.
And my paw leaves no print.
A Presence Without Footfall
Ferlinghetti’s “The Cat” isn’t a poem about action. It’s a poem about presence. About what it means to exist without explanation. To drift in and out of a room, a life, a moment—without ever truly being caught.
In other words… it’s a poem about being a cat. And that makes it just about purrfect.
Your Turn, Furriends!
Have you ever felt a cat’s presence before you saw them? Or watched one move like a dream across the edges of your bookshelf, your bed, your thoughts?
Share your own quiet cat encounters—or bookshelf sightings—in the comments below.
Purrs and poetry in motion,
Tyson 🐾
Leave a Reply