A Wounded Leopard (Ballade) Poem by Gert Strydom

A wounded leopard lies and spy upon the world,
around him there is the cooing of some doves,
guinea fowls and pheasants walk past moaning-moaning
where they are feeding their chicks.

Chorus:
It's twilight and the cold night is coming
and all kinds of animals do now come to him
where they smell his bloody trail
although he lies high, are camouflaged and hidden.

He lies high upon a branch away from the ground
but below there are hyenas and hunting dog upon hunting dog
that does look up and want to jerk him into pieces,
they growl at each other and run up and down.

He drives away blowflies with his tail while he is licking his wounds,
in the tree there is still an impala that he draws nearer with his front paws
and they do not know that healing and a change is coming to his life
when darkness does pull her cloak tight and do cover everything around him.

In the lives of most humans there are a time where destiny does take control,
where nobody does remain out of the merciless way of life,
where without cause wounds are meted out,
even when you do avoid conflict and argumentative conversations.

Where his life does lie in pieces like the dead carcasses
there are people that do insult him in his lot like a chorus of hyenas,
others that like wild hunting dogs do want to devour him in his unemployment,
still others that do not want him to have any chance for survival.

When surrounded from above he does growl and roar,
then for a moment all of them do run
but do return more vicious than before
to see if he has fallen from the branches.

He loves the vistas that the red-day and life does bring,
feels somewhat better and are lured to jump in between his enemies
to drive them away eternally, to let them spatter into all directions,
but he lies and waits on the creator to bring healing bit by bit.

When the dark night does fall still darker over him,
the shots the eradicating hunter are aimed at something else in the distance
and somewhere a lion roars in rage and he smells the spilled blood of the hunter
while everything goes silent in the thickets, on the hillocks and in the dales.