Time of the Baby Oryx

 In a spot in the wild

Among grass and cactus.

between two rivers flowing away –

each embroiled in its own course

Two eyes watching an afternoon terrain.

Panting in the Maasai Mara heat,

long teeth – teeth sent forth but recalled mid-hunt,

flashing menacingly yet leashed -

Restrained by as slender a strand of kindness

As the fleeting compassion of a rock in free fall

for the luckless ant on the ravine floor -

was a lioness.

 

And at the beasts warm side, a baby Oryx -

Her legs just firming, in the morning of her life

Lost to his kin to breath by the forest queen;

Looking for life in death’s lair

Sometime back in a Kenyan December.

 

Perhaps the innocence of careless prey

Perhaps the foolishness of starving predator;

Perhaps a sign from above –

For the lion and the lamb shall lie together.

Certainly, the shocked tourist.

Certainly two rivers flowed away -

Thief and a victim walked into an alleyway

Politician and voter kissed on the cheek.

For five impossible nights.

***

 

At first light

Glows the deep brown of an Oryx

Traipsing in the tropics among grass and cactus.

Wind whistles through grass and a beast yawns, walks

A ravening lion - keen on the meal he stalks.

The sun pauses, poised, an instant-

A lone witness to a callous mess unfolding

Among grass and cactus.

 

Panting from the venture is a full-cropped vulture;

It’s kin pick beaks and watch, from an acacia perch.

[Oryx… same stanza]

The head hyena hoots, leads away its cahoots

into a scavengers’ day, and two rivers flow away,

Among grass and cactus.

 

Settling dust, broken grass,

Blood here, a bone there.

Baring bloody canines

A lion lies sprawled

Among grass and cactus,

Where a baby Oryx once traipsed.