October 24: Halloween Kind of Day, Rainer Maria Rilke, "Black Cat"

It has been a Halloween kind of day.  Rain.  Winds that's tearing shingles off roofs.  Groaning and creaking buildings.  Power blackouts. This afternoon, I saw a little bit of snow falling, too.

The only thing that was missing was a witch on a broom and a black cat.

Saint Marty will provide the black cat.  Anybody know a witch?

Black Cat

by:  Rainer Maria Rilke

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.