CONVERSATIONS WITH A TIGER
Total exhaustion but a step or two away,
Each step just as close or closer still to death,
Scanning for the signs with seven senses,
Out on point and pausing to catch my breath.
Then a sudden instant warning, can you hear it?
The jungle sounds go silent in the everlasting gloom.
Something, somewhere stalking, just as we are,
Something, somewhere, out there bringing doom.
Quickly go to ground, keep frozen, silent.
Only sound left eyeballs clicking back and forth.
Frantic, but controlled, seek out the danger,
Find the men in jungle green, moving from the north.
Inch by inch; go creeping through the foliage,
Don't disturb a single blade of grass.
Crawl to where the silence weighs the deepest,
See how many of them have to pass.
Coughing breaks the silence, unprotected.
Sounding like a giant in the gloom,
Strange strong musk scent overlays the bushes.
Charnel smells, like something from the tomb.
Stretched out in a random patch of sunlight,
Ten feet long from nose to base of tale,
Muscles tensing, knotting and relaxing,
Shock so great I feel myself go pale.
Play of sunlight mingled with the shadows,
Far more perfect than our green and black,
Dusky orange, striped with blackest midnight.
Fifty meters 'tween me and my slack.
Hear its muscles cracking as it stretches,
Silent ripples running down its flanks,
Gently lapping water from the shallows
Unmapped streamlet, almost without banks
Water droplets shining on its muzzle,
Diamonds dancing on white, yellowed hairs,
Rounded ears that look as large as saucers,
Left side marked with scars that once were tears.
Silence padding up the trail from water,
Sitting, preening, basking in the heat,
Power, stealth, death, innocence, and splendor,
Grace and beauty, lightning on four feet.
Eyes of baleful yellow rimmed and slitted,
Eyes for stalking in the dark of night,
Nostrils flaring larger than a thumpgun,
Sense of smell by far eclipsing sight,
Smells me then, and turns toward me, seeking,
Knows the smell of metal and of men,
Fangs exposed, a coughing snarl that chills me,
Makes me a frightened boy again of ten.
Crouched and tensed, hind quarters sudden ready,
Twitching tail a whip and then a snake,
Death two body lengths away and waiting,
On the slightest move my body makes.
Sudden noise behind me in the bushes,
Slack is pushing forward with the team,
Spinning turn, it slinks back under shadows,
Disappears like smoke inside a dream.