snow leopard hunting

Napowrimo #18: meow! The tiger is a creature known to create wildness and tumult. In Chinese superstition, it is not a year to marry or have children. The tiger is too aggressive. It stalks and preys. Write a poem featuring the cat family, whether big or small. There are many cat poems that may inspire you. The first poem that comes to mind, William Blake’s “The Tyger,” wonders why such a creature is created in the first place. Did such a creation come from the Devil himself? God will only create a lamb, right? Ted Hughes wrote about the jaguar, a not-so-distant cousin. I think a jaguar looks even more fearsome. There’s a playful feline quality about the tiger. Not so with a jaguar! It is like black rage. I’ve seen a jaguar in a zoo, pacing endlessly in its cage. Here’s how Hughes wrote it, in “The Jaguar,” “He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him” and “his stride is wildernesses of freedom.” Then there’s the pussy cat. In “Esther’s Tomcat,” also by Hughes, the cat becomes, in a figurative sense, the protagonist, the beleaguered husband. Hughes describes him as “an old rough mat” and reveals, “Continual wars and wives are what/ Have tattered his ears and battered his head.” Is that enough to go on? Roar! Purr! (You choose.) Read Write Poem prompt here. (Curtail that prompt. Too long. What the..it’s mine!)

Solitary is the mother snow leopard.
She traversed the steep, rocky faces.
Sinewy python tail above ramparts.
Stooping to follow as a deer wanders.

She traversed the steep, rocky faces.
Her lair perched for high surveillance.
Stooping to follow as a deer wanders.
On craggy ridges, a cat in abeyance.

Her lair perched for high surveillance.
Crouching, closing that wide berth.
On craggy ridges, a cat in abeyance.
Throttled by teeth, the deer startled.

Crouching, closing that wide berth.
Victory slipped suddenly like butter.
Throttled by teeth, the deer startled.
Deer broke off, splashed into water.

Victory slipped suddenly like butter.
A cold wind nipped as cat watches.
Deer broke off, splashed into water.
Cubs grew mournful for their supper.

Wilderness keeps stalking moonbeams.
Sinewy python tail above ramparts.
She licked her babies tenderly unseen.
Solitary is the mother snow leopard.

unrhymed animal

Terrified –
of hunger, a scrawny stick of straw.

Mortified –
having tumbled headlong into brazen hay.

Petrified –
feeling the proximity of a ghostly shadow.

Stupified –
nuzzling inside a goose-feathered pillow.

**

A bird perched on the grille.
Are you sound of mind, it chirped.
I don’t feel insane, if that’s what you mean.
Minds think they’re sound, but aren’t really.
Facts are what the mind grasps constantly.
Like a table, a chair, a desk lamp.
Eternal truths hidden between facts,
become straw, embedded in feeling,
intangible like shadow.

Why do birds fly around in circles?
Like a formation, a tribal dance.
Maybe they like to wind-surf,
gliding eddies of air currents,
hence the saying, you feel free like a bird.
Birds are messengers of the spirit.
See them soar!
You’d feel like spreading your wings.
Figurative wings might save you.
When night comes, an animal gets down
on its haunches with another.
The weight shifts, once they feel
rustled, light as a feather.