Animals

Tankas

Song of the Wood:

Vole does his best to
dig quietly beneath the
browning, fallen leaves,
but tiny claws on rock makes
the tell-tale noise, a rasping.

The owl hears these
things and decides, flickering
wings in autumn's breast,
rustling leaves rise an inch
and just as quickly fall back.

Fox smiles into
his tail as the hounds pass by,
his burrow secure,
his vixen and the wee kits
behind him, the horse fading.

Kalahari:

Badger can climb up
the tree's wasted old carcass,
smelling another's
kill high in the limbs alone,
a drop of blood on the sand.

The leopard returns
to find poachers in his feed,
ground things up high,
badgers hissing in answer
to his own raised-hair growl.

Badger can't climb down,
but he's tough enough to fall,
stolen meat heavy
in his belly, his teeth red,
leopard's anger comes too late.