Once upon a time, I am Tiger

Usha Kishore

Hiding in brush, trees and grass,

glowing energy of the untamed wild,

I am the price of my occult eyes.

In dwindling light, I wash my

crystal soul in the twilight lake.

Once upon a time, I am Tiger...

I am a cross cultural cautionary tale,

a strange cat with a flaming back.

I am the price of my bewitching streaks.

I burn the forest with my sizzling stripes

that poets paint in words of immortal fire.

Once upon a time, I am Tiger...

Celestial light upon my back, silent as

night, through incensed cedar and

sandal, I turn into whispering wind.

I am the price of my sphinx like claws.

I am a transferred epithet,

a fossilised metaphor.

Once upon a time, I am Tiger...

Deity of the mangroves, I am prince

of solitude, queen of darkness.  

I am the price of my enchanted bones.

I rule the skies in hushed tones of

terror and awe. Roaring in orange

and black, I am the inheritance

of mother earth and her loss.

Once upon a time, I am Tiger...

Elemental spirit, haunting marshes,

thickets and riverine lands,

I am the price of my cryptic flesh.

I, who once fought demons,

am hunted, snared and damned.

I am the face of civilisations,

the lord of animals,  the mascot

of armies that march across time.

But on rainbow murals, I am slain

again and again by men on horseback.

Once upon a time, I am Tiger...

{Inspired by the Once upon a Tiger concepts of Janet Wong, Noëlle Janeczewska and Jaimini Pathak, with the snarling omnipresence of William Blake's Tyger.}

{Published in dimdima ezine for children (Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan, India, 2012}

©  Usha Kishore, 2012