Saturday Rave: The Cat by William Henry Davies.

 Write a poem, they tell you at school - and then they put up a list of five titles on the board from which to choose.

One of these titles is generally My Cat.

What do you write about? The soft fur, the warm body, the exclamation mark rear end, the velvety murderousness?

Here's an example from William Henry Davies. It's in my edition of The Oxford Book of English Verse

The Cat

Within the porch, across the way,

I see two naked eyes this night;

Two eyes that neither shut nor blink,

Searching my face with a green light.

But cats to me are strange, so strange -

I cannot sleep if one is near;

And though I'm sure I see those eyes

I'm not so sure a body's there!

You know, on reflection I think that with a bit of chin-scratching several of us might be able to do better. 

photo by Vannie

Still, that's an inspiring thought.

Word To Use Today: cat. The Old English form of this word was catte and the Latin for was cattus.