A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place <br />your sight can knock on, echoing; but here <br />within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze <br />will be absorbed and utterly disappear: <br /> <br />just as a raving madman, when nothing else <br />can ease him, charges into his dark night <br />howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels <br />the rage being taken in and pacified. <br /> <br />She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen <br />into her, so that, like an audience, <br />she can look them over, menacing and sullen, <br />and curl to sleep with them. But all at once <br /> <br />as if awakened, she turns her face to yours; <br />and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny, <br />inside the golden amber of her eyeballs <br />suspended, like a prehistoric fly.<br /><br />Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/black-cat/
