NaPoWriMo #15: A Tiger's Soliloquy

To what ends must I go
for the safety of my jungle home?
How far should I travel?
How many foes must I face?
Throw them back across my borders
or wallow in disgrace.
I thought the jackals an annoyance,
the wolves worthy rivals
and the infernal dhole a pestilence,
but the bipedal apes with their brazenness
and their fire-spitting weapons,
when they infringe on the jungle,
the combined strength of all my kin
cannot withstand their onslaught.
They slaughter and pillage
wherever they appear,
and I sit perched atop an ancient ruin
ensnared by creepers and vines
watching as their fires engulf the grass,
the trees, the gorges, encircle the waterholes.
The chital, the sambar, the langurs, the boar
all flee across the maidans to the hills,
and I can only prepare for the last bout
as the clever primates converge on my stronghold
and the jungle blazes into the night.

(Today's poem is inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website to write a poem in the form a dramatic monologue in the manner of Robert Browning or William Shakespeare. Never heard of a tiger giving a monologue before, but maybe now we have some insight into what that voice would sound like.)

Gods of the Sundarbans

There is a place where three rivers
pour into the Bay of Bengal.
Merging in a vast forest,
they wind their way through
the soaking delta of the Sundarbans.

Mangroves line the creeks
with their rib-like roots.
By day otters swim in the waters,
deer quench their thirst while
macaques watch from the trees.

Night falls, turning the streams
into mirrors of moonlight.
They catch the reflection of a solitary tiger.
It lurks in its forest refuge,
guarded by the coast.

Men sometimes see the tiger at night
as they fish the mangroves
or gather kindling from the forest.
It can swim through creeks and rivers
to kill them on their boats.

The boats rest at the beaches tonight.
No one intrudes on the forest
lest the tiger should appear.
It spies the boats on the shore
and retreats into the shadows.

The Bear of Mysore

after Kenneth Anderson, Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers

The last light of day leaves the fields.
A blazing torch flickers through
the darkness on the road in Mysore.
A woodcutter on his way home
hears a snort somewhere ahead
and the crush of figs under heavy paws.

He approaches the noise through the trees
and spots a figure in the brush.
There is a flash of black fur
in the glare of the woodcutter's torch.
Long claws blunted on termite mounds
lunge out and the fire is gone.

The morning light reveals a corpse.
Red coils protruding from a stomach,
eyes and nose bitten out and ripped
from their vacant sockets,
and a bloody tapestry of muscle
where there was once a face.

NaPoWriMo #30: Tiger Fire

And so, it has come to this; the final day of NaPoWriMo. How better to see off this year's event than with a recurring theme which lent this blog its name?

Tiger Fire

On the edge of a lake in Northern India,
where crocodiles gather and bask in the sun,
the way chital and sambar are restless
as the sun is directly overhead
and the grass is as dry as sand.

A fire crackles into life
and rages across the meadows,
flushing unsuspecting creatures
from their hiding places
and into the blaze's lethal path.

A tiger, resting under a sal tree,
feels the heat of the fire's hunger
and flees towards the lake,
flanked by the langur monkeys
and wild boar following in his wake.

At the water's edge, the tiger halts.
The flames cut off paths of escape.
The forest across the water remains unburned.
The tiger spies the chital running,
running to the lake to save their hides.

At last, the fire claims the shore,
but the tiger fears it no more,
for he alone amongst cats
masters the waters of the lake,
and tears past the crocodiles
to reach the opposite shore.

NaPoWriMo #27: Cormorant Gang

It's another animal poem for day twenty seven of NaPoWriMo, and this time we meet a bird which is famous for being semi-aquatic and is found all over the world, including the banks of the River Ganges.

Cormorant Gang

We take to the water in gangs
up and down the Ganges,
swimming in great processions
as we search for shoals.

The fishermen call us water crows,
apt indeed, for with our hooked beaks
and oily black feathers, we are
their underwater cousins.

We find some unfortunate fish,
and flanked by a clan of otters
we surround them and dart
through the mirk of the river.

The fishermen take their share.
We squabble with the otters for ours,
but our gang leaves with silvery prizes
squirming in our beaks.

NaPoWriMo #25: Jackal Sunset

It's time for another animal-themed poem for day twenty five of NaPoWriMo. The animal in this poem is a predatory creature from India; the rest is fairly straightforward.

Jackal Sunset

It darts across the grasslands
under the shadow of green hills.
The golden jackal searches
for food, living or not.

It chases the trails of the wolves,
leopards and the bloodthirsty dhole,
and will sometimes push its luck
when it spots a tiger on a kill.

The jackal's persistence is rewarded
as the night descends on the teak forest,
a leopard throttling a chital doe.
The jackal must wait to be served.

NaPoWriMo #22: Manta Flotilla

Okay, this is a bit earlier in the day than usual, but since I'm on a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon this weekend, I thought it better to release this poem earlier. Featuring one of my favourite settings for poems, the animal in this one is a bit more off-kilter than usual.

Manta Flotilla

The Indian subcontinent
reaches out into the ocean,
a current caressing its coast.

Sometimes the current
carries creatures with it,
creatures on a journey.

Out of the endless blue
a manta ray appears,
the eagle of the waters.

Then two, three, six
follow their leader
with great sweeping fins.

They follow the highway
around the southern coast,
heading for the Bay of Bengal,

where the flotilla will find
the reefs to raise their young,
and the current goes on its way.

NaPoWriMo #17: Cats in Trees

It's another India-themed poem for day seventeen of NaPoWriMo. This time, it features two of India's top predators in the vicinity of a single tree.

Cats in Trees

A teak tree in central India,
one of many in a deciduous forest.

A leopard with its kill on a branch,
its spotted fur blends into the bark.

A tiger prowling below,
unaware of its rival watching from above.

NaPoWriMo #5: King of Cats

It's time for another tiger poem. This one was inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo site, which encouraged participants to write a poem based in the natural world, in line with the work of Mary Oliver. It could be about a plant, animal or location and preferably one you have experienced often. So here's my attempt.

King of Cats

The last vestige
of a bygone time
when beasts still ruled
and humans huddled
around campfires,
telling stories
of the tiger.

The golden eyes of authority,
the only source of it
in the entire jungle.
No leopard or sloth bear
can match its grace
or the power with which
it pulls down a sambar stag
or duels with a bull guar.

Stripes, oily black,
on a burning coat of fur,
the emblazoned symbol
of an entire nation.
Humans appropriate its image,
worship its primal majesty,
fear its savagery when they step
into its isolated domain.

Yet in the face of a tiger
rests hopes for the future,
a future devoid of fear
of man-made extinction.
All things have their time,
but theirs is approaching sooner
in the form of snares, traps
and the weaponry of man.

Poets attempt to encapsulate
the tiger's immortality,
yet it is a construct,
a poetic device disguising
the battleground of the old jungles,
the trails of skins
leading across Asia.

A tigress sits in her den,
tending to her mewling cubs,
their young stripes help light the flame
which burned for millions of years,
faced with being extinguished
before its time.

Snow Leopard

A stream in the highest valley,
a glacier of the Himalayas,
frozen yet still running
thanks to a conscientious spring.

Prints in the snow betray
the path of a snow leopard
prowling along the valley
towards an intended victim.

A markhor buck drinks at the stream,
a lord of mountain goats,
coiled corkscrew snake horns
and a man fit for a horse.

A pale ghost, the spotted shade,
slinks along the rocks,
and surprises the thirsty goat,
chasing it headlong up a ridge
till claws and teeth seize it
just as it leaps from a ledge.

And he sits on his illustrious throne

And he sits on his illustrious throne,
fashioned from the great jungle cats of old,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Bought by the hands of the rich city men,
built by men sheltering from the night's cold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne.

Those eager to leave their village and send
spoils from the jungle to the mountain fold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Snares, traps, guns, the tools of desperate men,
the buyer ensures his foes are not told
how he sits on his illustrious throne.

From Ranthambore to Pench and back again,
the flow of pelts and corpses always sold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

The last tiger hides in his bamboo den
until taken to the rich man's stronghold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Desert Rains

Rain falls on the wastes
of the vast Rann of Kutch.
The dead salt flats become
a living marsh once more.

The empty land of salt and sand
sprouts the year's first green.
Trees and grass spring up
and line the new waterways.

Water floods the desert.
Its heart blossoms into pink
from the flamingoes gathering
on a newly formed lake.

Their ankles flex and bend,
their knees forever invisible.
In the humblest of nests
the eggs begin to hatch.

Champawat

after Jim Corbett, Man-eaters of Kumaon

In the jungles of Kumaon
a darkness descended
in the form of a tigress.

She came from the windswept
forests of Nepal, having taken
two hundred lives.
Soldiers hunted for her,
and she fled to find a new kingdom.

She prowled the fields
around Champawat,
stalking those who strayed
too far from their homes.
She pounced on them
while they gathered dried leaves,
to drag them off into a ravine,
leaving trails of crimson in her wake.

Her roars rumbled
along the road at night,
and her prey shivered in their huts.
The tigress grew bloated
on human flesh,
but another two hundred lives
could not satisfy her.

A pool of fresh blood,
a shattered blue necklace.
The tigress drags her newest kill,
a girl of sixteen,
into the forested ravine.
A severed, abandoned leg
turns the water red.
A rustling in the scrub.
She growls, snarls, retreats into the brush.
She can smell a man's scent.

She follows a stream to the ridge,
but her hunter is persistent.
That night she feasts,
but come the morning drums echo
from the trop of the ridge.
She awakens to see
her pursuers in the marsh.

Two rounds from a shotgun,
and one round from a rifle
send her tearing up the hill.
The drums beat louder,
voices chanting in a frenzy.
She rounds on her enemies
and charges her undaunted pursuer.

A blast, and the tigress stops.
A second blast and she flinches,
ears flattened and bared teeth.
She flees for a rock,
but her hunter is not deterred.
He is the last thing she sees
before the final blast.

The drums turn silent,
the chanting reaches fever-pitch,
and the tigress lies still,
staring up at the hunter
with lightless amber eyes.

Stork Village

Openbill Storks,
nesting in trees above a small village.
Their beaks shaped
like scissors, they cluster
over thatched houses below.

Three chicks sit stiff
where their nest landed
after jostling for space.
White feathers tucked up,
but they do not go unnoticed.

A new home awaits
in the sanctuary of the village,
with bowls of snails
to fuel growing wings.

Singing Apes

A brown ape stops at a gap
between branches and spies another bough.

Whooping, the gibbon flies out of cover,
landing on the next branch.
Hornbills take off in fright,
and a giant squirrel retreats.

The gibbons swings across the spur,
her feet dangling.
Sighting her black-haired mate,
she swivels her wrists and leaps.

He begins to sing.
His throat resonates to his tune,
a deep-chested bass which turns
into a shrill cry and back again.

His song floods the forest,
echoes through the mist,
joined by his mate's chorus.
The singing apes meet
at the top of the tallest tree.

They survey the Himalayas
sheltering the rising sun.
Their calls forming a duet, they swing
through the canopy together.

Night of the Dhole

A whistling scream.

When mist falls on the forest
and the silvery meadows,
deer turn their heads
and dart into the trees.

Peacocks scatter
into the undergrowth.
The last brave sambar
stands in the grass,
spying the forest's edge.

Screams echo.
The sambar takes flight.
A single dhole emerges
from the trees,
with white teeth bared
and a coat of red fur.

The pack scourges the meadows -
infiltrates the forest
as the night draws in.
Wolves flee
from their hungry growls
and voracious yapping.

Somewhere in the darkest tangle
of bamboo thickets, a sleeping tiger
hears the whistling pack
and twitches.

The Tiger Poet vs. Kaziranga National Park

If you've been following this blog for a while, you will know that India is a subject I write about a lot. I've had an interest in the country since I was three years old, having watched documentaries about its wildlife on television, and six years ago I got to visit India in person and visit some of its national parks. I visited Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh, and while the former in particular was a dream destination for me, there was one park I had hoped to visit maybe on a return journey; Kaziranga.

It seems Kaziranga has been thrust into the spotlight in recent years. Situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra in Assam, India's most easterly state, it has become a conservation success story due to its efforts to preserve the Indian rhinoceros. It has since become even more famous due to visits from the British Royal family and as being one of the locations featured in David Attenborough's Planet Earth II. But now Kaziranga National Park seems to be in the news for other, more worrying reasons. The other day, while finishing my last post, I stumbled upon a BBC News article by Justin Rowlatt detailing the current situation between the forest department which manages Kaziranga and the local people who live on the edge of the park.

 In the last couple of years forest guards have been given extraordinary powers to shoot and kill anyone inside the park who they suspect to be involved in poaching. For many years the forest guards have been involved in a long-term battle against poaching gangs, but the BBC reported that while the number of rhinos killed in the last few years has decreased, the number of people shot by the park guards has reached fifty. Compare this to two people prosecuted for poaching in the last three years and only one forest guard killed by poachers in the past twenty years, it seems there is something amiss with Kaziranga's conservation methods. Add to this allegations of torture by the forest department and evictions of villages along the park border and we have ourselves a truly convoluted situation.

So what can I offer to the discussion? I have spoken about the blight of poaching in some of my poetry, most strongly in 'Ghosts of Sariska' which was my attempt to deal with the Sariska Tiger Reserve poaching scandal in poetic form. It was a case in which an entire population of tigers were killed of by poachers due to a combination of poor management and outdated protection methods. That was in 2005, and India has redoubled its conservation efforts since then. According to the BBC article, this new policy which allows park guards to shoot potential poachers came into force following a recommendation after the number of rhinos lost to poachers more than doubled in 2013. However, this leads to cases where local people with no connection to poaching gangs are getting caught in the crossfire, and this is where conservation crosses the line.

I'm all for increased security to protect endangered species from poachers. It has been proved in other cases such as the Sariska scandal that local people often work with poaching gangs due to the high financial gains involved in trading rhino horns and tiger skins. But shooting and killing people indiscriminately, like something out of a Judge Dredd comic, sends entirely the wrong signal to those communities who can aid the Assam Forest Department's efforts. India has a long history of coexistence with the natural world, and these tribal communities who have lived in the forest for centuries are in an ideal place to aid conservation efforts.

That's not to say that humans and animals should be made to share the same space. The establishment of twenty eight Project Tiger reserves in the 1970s involved the relocation of people and villages, which led to a comeback for tigers in the wild. Nevertheless, the expansion of Kaziranga has turned into a human rights issue, with entire villages being evicted and then demolished, leading to clashes between local people and the police. Also due to the fact that the forest guards are protected from prosecution if they kill someone, it seems as if local people have the cards stacked firmly against them.

I won't pretend to have the answers for this situation. On the one hand it's great to see conservation in India strengthening but disheartening to see such brutal methods being employed. Somehow a balance needs to be struck between the needs of people and animals while still maintaining a firm line against poachers. The comeback of endangered species such as the Indian rhino is a triumph of conservation, but when compared with the human cost it seems that a revaluation of the way forward is desperately needed.

Rudraprayag

after Jim Corbett, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag

There is a road in the mountains
between Badrinath and Kerdanath.
Shrines that sheltered pilgrims
for thousands of years.
The road now shelters no one.

Flu-ravaged corpses lined the banks
of two rivers nourished by glaciers.
Coals sat in their mouths
to absorb the stench of death.

The corpses' flesh filled
the stomach of leopard.
The road fell under its shadow.
For eight years it prowled
through the mountains

and found prey in every village.
It leapt through windows,
snatching infants from their cribs
with barely a noise,
just silence remaining.

One of those villages
became its favourite haunt.
A small place on the road,
huddled in between the river
and a forested mountain.

The houses of Rudraprayag are
still. Goats bleat uneasily, while
cows stare dumfounded into the gloom.
A lantern on the headman's porch
cools from the heat of its flame.

A shadow crosses the threshold.
It rips and slashes the locked door,
breaking it down with force of hunger.
Gnarled teeth plunge into the soft throat
so only a whisper escapes.
It tears the man from his bed
into the cover of the night.

(Hi guys, the Tiger Poet here. Hope you enjoyed this poem, there are plenty more on their way. It's been very quiet these last few months, but hope you all had a good summer. See you soon.)

New Journeys

After so long without a new post, here's a poem I composed about turtles hatching on a beach in India.

New Journeys

The sand begins to move
under a glowing full moon.
Thousands of eggshells
litter underground nests.

The heads appear first,
followed by thrashing flippers,
then the small grey shells
of the new born turtles.

They scuttle for the waves
in one enormous rush,
and blend into the surf
as the moon disappears.

At dawn the beach is empty,
save for one hatchling,
leaving the sand for the sea
and beginning the real journey.

NaPoWriMo #15 | Eyes of the Forest

So I've reached the halfway point in my NaPoWriMo odyssey. To celebrate, I've written another India poem, this time about gray langur monkeys. These monkeys are found right across Indian, from the forests of Madhya Pradesh to the foothills of the Himalayas. Hope you enjoy.

Eyes of the Forest

A gray langur relaxes
on the highest branch
of a slender sal tree.

A grey mane of fur
around her black face,
with unblinking eyes.

A baby huddles against
its mother as she watches
the silent forest floor.

A younger langur lounges
on a spindly branch.
He barks, stirring the others.

The troop takes up the call
as a spotted shadow slinks
through the undergrowth below.

The leopard retreats into
the greenery, and the mother
and her baby can relax again.