Even the smallest member
of the family stands tall.
The Queen of Bali,
of the mangroves and the grasslands,
she prowled the dense jungles,
sending deer and birds fleeing,
shrinking from her shadow,
as fierce and revered
as her Indian brothers.
Those from across the sea
came seeking her,
to pay her homage
with steel and lead,
with the teeth of snap-traps
and bullets to the skull.
Every part of her had use,
to the visitors and her neighbours.
Her teeth and claws warded off evil,
her skin adorned the hunters' den,
her whiskers made the sharpest poison.
Such reverence and torment
scattered her to the winds of history.
A museum forms her tomb,
her bones laid in state,
her skin with the stripes faded,
her skull with the bullet hole
decorating her forehead.
Out in the mangroves
the deer sometimes cower
at a passing feline shadow,
a spectre
from the forests of yesterday.
(So ladies and gentlemen, that's it. NaPoWriMo is over for another year. To anyone who's followed my journey through the challenge this year, thanks for sticking around and I'm pleased that we got through it again this year. To my fellow poets who took on the challenge this year, well done for sticking with it to the end! I'll have my full thoughts on how I think it went this time out tomorrow at the latest. Thanks once again, and until next year, goodbye NaPoWriMo!)
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