AMUR TIGER

Tiger, tiger, fading light;
How did we get here?
Are we in the twilight
of your Night?

Not a Disney character, you,
but real, alive, and to be feared,
all beauty, muscle, and sinew.

Poets pen your grace,
a cat of all instinct, a fearful roar,
a winsome face.

And now we count you one-by-one,
a creature to be extinct,
and ask ourselves:
What have we done?

Puma/MMXI
(‘Voices in my head, verses to be read’)