The Encounter
Drizzle and formless
as it was in the beginning–
and from the mist, stepping out
as if parting a curtain,
an apparition appeared in the
discovery end of my binoculars.
I stood on a hill peering down
into a valley somewhere
in Tanzania, when
in all her tawny grace
as if she were being created
before my eyes, a lone lioness
padded deadly and deliberate
out of the fog. No hunting partners,
no sisters, no back-up.
No blood smear on her face,
no tell-tale sign of a night’s
feed and frenzy. Not yet.
Only the rocking gait, the low-slung jaw,
the terrible aptitude for patience.
She was queen and knew it.
Didn’t baboons shriek
and zebras take off in a blur
of stripes? Didn’t the vultures
circle, eyeing every move she made?
And didn’t the baobab–that mythic tree–
lift its bird-filled arms
for them to mark and remember
how under their sunny chirping, always
the muted thunder of her step.
