Black Cat

The very first words of the poem, “A ghost” (Line 1), suggest that the reader is going to be taken out of the range of the normal, everyday world. The ghost may be invisible (although Rilke does not actually use the word “unsichtbar,” which is German for “invisible”) and yet an encounter with a ghost leaves an impact, a trace; something reciprocal occurs; the ghost in a sense is a tangible thing that the eyes can interrogate “like a place” (Line 1), and it produces an auditory phenomenon that reverberates, “echoing” (Line 2). An encounter with a ghost is a meeting of sorts between two entities; it is not a one-way thing (Lines 1-2).

Toward the end of Line 2, Rilke alerts the reader to an upcoming contrast with the word “but.” Now the cat appears, with its thick black fur (Line 3). The blackness of the cat is important, since black is the absence of light and therefore color. Color disintegrates in darkness; it cannot be perceived. Therefore the speaker can gaze at the cat for as long as he pleases, but his gaze will make no impact or impression on this particular creature. It is as if the gaze just dissolves, absorbed in the cat.