leopards, farmers and tongues, oh my!

something newish, still very much in progress...


Stealing Thunder from the Storm's Mouth
based on the true story of a Kenyan farmer
who reached into the mouth of an attacking leopard

Of course your name would be Daniel,
and you would listen to the voice
buzzing at you like a vengeful fly--
which you say must have come from God.

It followed that the voice urged you to drop
the machete and use your fist as a dowsing wand
to divine the squirming snake of his tongue.

Then, slow as prophecy,
the tearing of the tongue—
like the baobab tree,
roots torn from the prairie soil
it had always known as home,
tossed across the sky by the hand of god,

followed by the tongueless screams of the dying.

What suprises me is how you lay there, grandfather,
gifting the beast with your sad smile,
waiting for the neighbors to load you into their rusted truck
and take you to the hospital, some 30 minutes away.

How you half-raised your blood-soaked hand in farewell,
but did not tell anyone how the leopard had come to steal your words,
so it might return and pour your voice
like fresh-cooked oatmeal into the ears of your children,
and your children's children.

How you'd heard those lullabyes rustling;
how each clan, each animal, each family has a song it sings;
how your father had pulled you aside one sunday
and taught you that words are smelted in the forge of the mind,
cast on the anvil of the tongue and sliced their way
through the armor of the ear before finding their way home.

How you'd handed the torn piece of tongue
to your eldest son, wrapped in white cloth
and asked him to save it for you, so after the bandages,
after the recovery, after the return to your farm,
you might go with him to burn the thing
and hear a familiar voice drifting through the smoke
up into what you can only call heaven.