The animals were imperfect,
long-tailed,
unfortunate
in their heads.
Little
by little they
put
themselves together,
making
themselves a landscape,
acquiring
spots, grace, flight.
The
cat,
only
the cat
appeared
complete and proud:
he
was born completely finished,
walking
alone and knowing what he wanted.
Man
wants to be fish or fowl,
the
snake would like to have wings
the
dog is a disoriented lion,
the
engineer would like to be a poet,
the
fly studies to be a swift,
the
poet tries to imitate the fly,
but
the cat
only
wants to be a cat
and
any cat is a cat
from
his whiskers to his tail,
from
his hopeful vision of a rat
to
the real thing,
from
the night to his golden eyes.
There
is no unity
like
him,
the
moon and the flower
do
not have such context:
he
is just one thing
like
the sun or the topaz,
and
the elastic line of his contours
is
firm and subtle like
the
line of a ship's prow.
His
yellow eyes
have
just one
groove
to
coin the gold of night time.
Oh
little
emperor
without a sphere of influence
conqueror
without a country,
smallest
living-room tiger, nuptial
sultan
of the sky,
of
the erotic roof-tiles,
the
wind of love
in
the storm
you
claim
when
you pass
and
place
four
delicate feet
on
the ground,
smelling,
distrusting
all
that is terrestrial,
because
everything
is
too unclean
for
the immaculate foot of the cat.
Oh
independent wild beast
of
the house
arrogant
vestige
of the night,
lazy,
gymnastic
and
alien,
very
deep cat,
secret
policeman
of
bedrooms,
insignia
of
a
disappeared
velvet,
surely
there is no
enigma
in
your manner,
perhaps
you are not a mystery,
everyone
knows of you
and
you belong
to
the least mysterious inhabitant,
perhaps
everyone believes it,
everyone
believes himself the owner,
proprietor,
uncle
of
a cat,
companion,
colleague,
disciple
or
friend
of
his cat.
Not
me.
I
do not subscribe.
I
do not know the cat.
I
know it all, life and its archipelago,
the
sea and the incalculable city,
botany,
the
gyneceum and its frenzies,
the
plus and the minus of mathematics,
the
volcanic frauds of the world,
the
unreal shell of the crocodile,
the
unknown kindness of the fireman,
the
blue atavism of the priest,
but
I cannot decipher a cat.
My
reason slips on his indifference,
his eyes have golden numbers.
