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“A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—
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There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month.
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To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten in the moon;
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And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;
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Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;
And east rushes west and west rushes down,
No matter. The grass is full
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And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,
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You become a self that fills the four corners of night.
The red cat hides away in the fur-light
And there you are humped high, humped up,
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You are humped higher and higher, black as stone—
You sit with your head like a carving in space
And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.