Mountain  Lion

This lion has been seen

To leap impossibly high,

A deer in its mouth

And has roamed the land

Thousands of miles West to East

Ignoring boundaries

Houses, roads, power lines

Civilization's clutter -

Died in Connecticut

Carrying its own

Vast particular wildness

Through hidden pathways

Stealthy, nocturnal,

Crepuscular, glimpsed seldom .

And what of its prey?

Fleet of foot, wide-eyed

The calculus of energy

To bone and sinew

Long, low and lean

Greyhound-shaped, fiercely enhanced -

Feline of splendours