She Pawns Her Life

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Death looms large

Their hoofs dig dust cloud

The springbok mom

Can’t leave her newborn

Alone to be crunched and gulped

Down that “fearful symmetry”*

She has other thoughts

And adopts her stance

To play with Death

The drama unfolds

On that grassy stage

She becomes a dancing nymph

To ignite the wrath of Death

Towards her

The blazing sky

Adds fire to the hungry eye

Thus the exposition

The rising action follows

With a long, long chase

To that climactic point

Of lightning flash of acrobatics

Then

The sinews of the “deadly terrors”*

Relent

The weary and exhausted cheetah

Slows down

He is back to the clan

Head hung and tongue out

Falling action indeed!

Catastrophe is avoided

Now for the revelation

Joy cavorts

In springbok hoofs

Of mother and child

Happy Mother’s Day!  

From a poet of a land, far away. 

*words within inverted commas are taken from Blake’s Tyger

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United