creatures of the night

let’s call her neela, those wild blue eyes
sapphire gazing
while you point a white torch

in the general direction of
wilderness, nature, where we came from
& are not going back again.

the leopards live in thick bushes
hiding
from prying human eye

a mother with two cubs
perhaps there’s a male somewhere
chasing hares for supper.

snakes with venom 
not as harmful as humans who lurk behind, saying those things –that you are wild at night 

you are a strange one
born for other climes
& now with settler wisdom

peering from a machan
deep into the future
for what is not there.

we are all stone chipped, organic, home grown
tasty as locally brewed 
yet somewhere there is the feeling 

all is not lost
when a spotted one leaps into the darkness
where things spring from.