Of a Tiger
Beyond green stocks of bamboo it crouches.
Under what terms might one see the cat
as real as it is? The rolling shoulders,
the silent feet, the wild eyes, the mind
unsubdued by ridiculous moralisms — its
thoughts a will onto itself,
a mind of its world.
The desire to see the beast not in
a cage subdued by a petty masquerade
of dominance and the tiger knowing it
has been subdued for that purpose.
No, the eyes wild because it is the jungle
that fires them. Its fear a fear of death
and never once of chains: that must be
a different kind of look. Under what
circumstances would such a sight be
feasible?
Perhaps, in the furthest reaches of ones being
it could be appreciated how the tiger is
assembled for the very purpose it has found
you and the ferocity by which it maintains a
harmony with its
needs.
There beyond the fear of the violence that has leapt
from the forest cover, one might see a dignity to be gained.
Uninhibited by uncertainty as you and I
would know it, petty moralisms expunged from
its capacity for spontaneous navigation of the unfantastic questions of
life and death. No ease of living has been afforded it
for a stacking of such thoughts against
the world as it is. No need of a life philosophy to
bring it back to a sense of self lost.
To see those eyes
through the neon green forest and the
black rippling stripes and the strange
fearsome orange
and then
the soft downy white of its chest as it rises
up out of the foliage,
its teeth bared and
the event horizon of
its mouth reaching out.
There are circumstances in which all but feeling and acting are what remain. And there when you finally see the tiger as
the deft mask of impropriety gives way and you become
as the tiger is — when it is clear, at the core — emotion governs
all.
I am no match
for this cat, so undaunted by suppositions,
so prepared for the demands of its world,
so forthcoming about its use of camouflage.
When it sleeps, its nightmares are of
starvation, disease and the risks of an
incapacity in preventing these, not of dishonor
or some utopianist's lacking of godliness. And aren’t
these the only
fears worth fearing?
This
cat is earthbound. For it,
there is no heaven or hell. We need
not conjure some nonhuman
speculation at
the cat’s psychology to know that
a faultless uncertainty is what has
gathered the cat so
when it finds you
and why to see the cat is
to finally be rid of what is
not yours. Perhaps
there the cat’s apparent excesses can
be appreciated for what they are.
