Sleutelwoorde
bloganuary, bloganuary-2024-15, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1818
Amptelik kwalifiseer ek seker as a “crazy cat lady”, want ek is versot op katte en deel ‘n huis met vier van hulle: Smokey, Batman, Diesel en Midnight.
Ek het al so baie oor katte vertel, dat ek vandag gaan volstaan met die wonderlikste gedig deur die Ierse digter W.B. Yeats – ‘n gedig wat ek maar eers nou-die-dag ontdek het. Die beskrywing “alone, important and wise” roep die beeld van Batman by my op waar hy in die donkerte deur die tuin sluip. (Die pragtige naam “Minnaloushe” kom waarskynlik van die Frans “Minoulouche” – minou = katjie en louche = skeel, alhoewel daar ook meer romantiese verklarings is, soos “helder maan” uit Grieks.)
THE CAT AND THE MOON
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
“The Cat and the Moon” is reprinted from The Wild Swans at Coole. W.B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1919.