The Cat

The Cat Miroslav Holub

Outside it was night like a book without letters. And the eternal dark dripped to the stars through the sieve of the city.

I said to her do not go you’ll only be trapped and bewitched and will suffer in vain.

I said to her do not go why want nothing?

But a window was opened and she went,

a black cat into the black night, she dissolved, a black cat in the black night, she just dissolved and no one ever saw her again. Not even she herself.

But you can hear her sometimes, when it’s quiet and there’s a northerly wind and you listen intently to your own self.


I chose this poem because it reminded me of one of the song lyrics I analyzed in the first quarter (Passing Afternoon by Iron & Wine) because it generates the feeling of lost love and longing in the end of both poems.

Obviously, the cat is a woman who left him. To me, it seems like it is not because she didn't love him, it is because she was "a cat" and needed to leave for herself and change.

The fact that it is night, allows the poem to make sense because a black cat is usually pictured walking in the night, not the daylight. When he says the dark was a book without letters, it made me think that it is kind of "not alive" in a way. In the daylight things are active and new, while in the night it can be sad, scary and dark...a book without pages is the same because you cannot read it, but it is still there and the same, just different and dark. Sorry, it is really hard to explain my thoughts on this...

When she left into the dark "she dissolved" because he knew she was never coming back and because she changed or wanted to. She didn't want to be with him anymore (change). I imagined that in this poem she traveled to far off places, kind of gypsy-like and did not want a regular suburban life...totally left to the imagination but that is what I thought of.

In the end where he says

"and no one ever saw her again. Not even she herself. But you can hear her sometimes, when it’s quiet and there’s a northerly wind and you listen intently to your own self."

I interpreted it as she left, she had changed, and the man thought of this as she changed completely: "and no one ever saw her again. Not even she herself." The last stanza is about how he still thinks of her and wish she never left.


I really liked the flow of this poem, for some reason, even the way it was set up, it brought longing and the slow feeling of time, losing something you love. The short stanzas are what accomplished this...I also enjoyed how story-like it was, and how it went through time.