Santa Barbara's Pets & Animals

Santa Barbara’s
Pets & Animals

Odes to All the Critters
We Love and Protect

**By Indy Staff | June 5, 2025**

As chock-full as this year’s Pets & Animals issue is — featuring stories on a culture change at our pound; how a master dog-finder locates lost pets; and a touching tale of a parrot, a hawk, and their keeper — we are remiss for not including any cat-focused features.

To make up for that omission, and hopefully make good with cat owners (of which there are many on the Indy staff), here is a 1924 poem by the Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda.

Cat’s Dream

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings —
a series of burnt circles —
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger’s great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.