Padding stealthily through the forest
Brown eyes fully focussed
Heartbeat calming beating
Through the monkeys' nuisance chorus

Their stench of fear my nostrils fill
As they swing from vine to vine
Their chattering is so loud and shrill
On monkey meat I do not dine

But there it was within my sight
This strange animal and veneer
A rabid dog frothing in the night
Reinforcing its mad, mad jeer

I too came to see the worried beast
But was sadly disappointed
The chattering monkeys has disappeared
Was the rabid dog placated?

So I arched my back and stretched my limbs
And padded slowly home
Savouring the still night air
Larger forests still to roam


An original poem by Tulip1969

Beautifully descriptive and interesting

Liked the cadence in your lines,
who wouldn't or who 'couldn't?'

It appears you took a wrong turn (in an evening walk)
and entered the fringes of a reserved forest,

cause no woman could dream or rhyme
on powers that through sinews flow
For padding stealthily through a forest
is not for flowers nor a florist show
--

But in Kipling's Jungle I could hear, or is it 'did' hear
the swish of tail before you took trail
stepped aside and let you pass
across the chorus of monkey din

Your nostrils twitched at my excited stench
but did not flare and take deep fill
didn't stop in your feline stride
and seek the shadows like a proper wench

the cur you sighted
the abandoned cub
Yelping for mama bear
I had allowed;
but then you breeze by, left me all distracted

Too late,
I felt a crashing weight
as the canine bear got her lucky bite
Took an angry chew
then left the fight

I have circled miles
for the scent that will not erase
will circle again, till it fades
till it fades.

Thank you for the kind words everyone. :)

The animal is the Panther, Latin: Panthera Onca, aka Melanistic Jaguar.