Classic Poem

TO A C AT F ROM W HOM O NE H AS B EEN S EPARATED F OR A L ONG T IME

I have come back, Winky.
After a long time — yes.
There was a heavy sodden sea,
And I in the midst of it.
Before me, white snakes swam in a slime of seaweed.
They drew their bodies through the seaweed with a dreadful rustle
Like dead leaves on sand,
And left long open lanes behind them
Which glowed a clotted purple
Under the rays of a bursting, half-sunk sun.
Somewhere, on the right, were shores
With high glass cliffs.
The cliffs were hot and leapt up and down unceasingly,
And the heat from them blistered my body
Even under the water as I swam.
A wind rose
And drove the weeds faster upon me,
And I struggled in fear of the snakes who came swiftly — swiftly —
Then I sank down somewhere out of the sea
Into a place of mist.
I was blind,
But my ears were shrunken points of awareness,
I was anguished by the keenness of my ears,
For all round were loud voices
Shouting harsh, unintelligible things
Which I strove to understand, but could not.
I trod upon the voices,
But they shifted like pebbles beneath my feet.
I fought with them,
Flinging them from me,
Pushing them down with my hands.
At last I had them under me and I was rising —
I saw nothing, but I was rising —
Then my mouth choked with salt,
And the salt entered my eyes and unsealed them.
Light was an explosion in my brain,
And I floated again in the seaweed sea
Under the bloody cliffs which leapt like flame.

Now I am sitting in a room again,
With fire-light fluttering on the walls
And you in my lap — purring.
Little cat, are you as glad to have me to lie upon
As I am to feel your fur under my hand?
Your purr sounds like the blowing of feathers in a wind;
It is a strangely comfortable sound,
And there is no other,
For the night smiles and says nothing.