He Found The Desert And It Took Him After Sunset Poem by Michael Veremans

When the heat plummeted
And the desert drew cold,
A lion weeded his way
With heaving, sinewy steps
Over the snake paths,
Coiling in the salt and sand.

His mane curled and tangled
In progressively retreating halos
And his eyes panned and shined
Green glowing round turtle shells,
That flashed a beautiful blaze,
Reaching to the sinking sun.

Knives of grass, dry weeds,
The debris of life and glory,
Stabbed into his black sodden paws
And drew congealed and dry blood
That rose blue like the last sunset
In the sky that flickered and faded and died.

The rabbits were dead also;
Dried in the seaward wind
And taken by their skeletons
To the surface of some great welling,
Pouring golden tears
Over the waning and vacant skyline.

While the lion watched the nighttime come alone,
Sheets of sand blew through his nostrils
And his rib cage showed
A decaying metal grating
Under his matted, dusty fur
With its stale and suffocating texture.

When he was thin and dim
He stood on two paws, then on four
Until he could stand no more
And sunk into the ground.
And when his proud bones cracked,
The very marrow leaked into the salt.