Ariel, Pacific NW poet

Today’s is World Wildlife Day, a subject dear to my heart. This year they are especially advocating to protect the Big Cats from extinction.

I have quite a few Climate Change/Conservation poems and a good third use the voice of Big Cats as a cry to stop the extinction of Earth’s animals. Probably because, in tigers, it’s not just the human one I am fond of. And also because the current situations of Tigers is a great example of what harm happens when we humans throw the balance of the world’s wildlife off (I am a very vocal “tree-hugger).

So today’s prompt is to “write a persona animal poem”. Let your inner animal howl. Let hem speak.

Climate-change denier? Maybe you are a big-game hunter? Believe that extinction is a good thing? You can write about that too. I won’t like you – but you can write about that.

Ha! My pre-send editor keeps editing Big Cats to Bug Cats … What the heck is a Bug Cat? Sounds like a nightmare to me! Can you imagine a big cat with 6 legs?

And let me share one of my tiger poems that is about actual tigers. And jaguars, panthers, bobcats, lions …

Nature Mourns the Lost Child

I’ve never been to Africa but I don’t need to
to know the Cradle of Life began in my belly
But I birthed only one child;
consciously kept my fertile womb barren after that,
kept the fields dry despite the frequent rains.
After all, the tiger was fading –
time killing his babies, no need anymore for the Alkali,
the Nilgai. Society stalked his territory, ate it up,
swallowed it, as it did the cougar. I used to watch him sleeping,
his compact muscles gently moving in his somnambulant breath.
Watched in pride as he gathered his bulk in a spring
his muscled jaw bringing the Wapiti’s head down. This century
when I walk barefoot through the jungle, there are no soft pads,
no head-bumps, no chuffing,
nothing to chase after anymore. And your mother is desolate.
Don’t ask me to feed you; you were not my favorite child;
I did not give you a royal patterned coat
I did not give you golden depthless eyes
nor four-inch teeth that would open the world.
I did not give you the blood of other creatures to drink;
you are soft, ineffective; teeth one-fourth of an inch.
I thought that would keep you contained …
after all, the tiger could feast on you.
How is it he ended up with you on his neck?