Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

A sad, sad poem.

Dying–you wouldn’t do that to a cat.
For what is a cat to do
in an empty apartment?
Climb up the walls?
Brush up against the furniture?
Nothing here seems changed,
and yet something has changed.
Nothing has been moved,
and yet there’s more room.
And in the evenings the lamp is not on.

One hears footsteps on the stairs,
but they’re not the same.
Neither is the hand
that puts a fish on the plate. ……

Read the rest here.

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4 responses to “A Cat In An Empty Apartment”

  1. Sujatha

    Sad indeed. Here are some more translated poems by the same poet. Amazing insight.
    Some like poetry</>
    Some–
    that means not all.
    Not even the majority of all but the minority.
    Not counting the schools, where one must,
    and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.
    Like–
    but one also likes chicken noodle soup,
    one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,
    one likes to prove one’s point,
    one likes to pet a dog.
    Poetry–
    but what sort of thing is poetry?
    More than one shaky answer
    has been given to this question.
    But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
    as to a saving bannister.

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  2. Narayan Acharya

    This was the poem that NPR singled out for praise (perhaps even read out) the day the Nobel Prize for Szymborska was announced.

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  3. Not so sad..cats really like to sleep..though i cant imagine myself in a closed door house all day long

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  4. That’s really a sad poem. It feels like the cat is so alone on the apartment.
    -Sam

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