Shadow Tiger Poem by Laura Greene

She remembered when once she kept this world alone
A goddess gliding through eternal trees
Beneath the silver queen on a heavenly throne
Scent of jasmine whirled by an invisible breeze

The shadow tiger dances through her domain
The jungle's spirit of the night
She owns the leaves frosted in jewels by magical rain
And the cricket's melodic songs of delight

Her gold fur's turned to white by enchanted light
And she detects another presence there
A deceptively bewitching tiger with fur fire bright
And as their eyes lock her world wails in despair

Now she keeps this world with another
Slave to her cub's continuous needs
Which chains her forever by the side of her lover
Her old free soul slowly chokes and bleeds

But one night when her cubs lay to nap
She sees and remembers the starbug's hypnotic play
And her soul's reborn and breaks free of its trap
She flees and flees further and further away

She's vanished forever like an evanescent dream
Now the world's transformed back to right from wrong
The shadow tiger's not as cruel as she may seem
She should have stayed solitary all along

Once again she rules the world by herself
Joyfully gazing at the sky crystal splattered
One-of-a-kind empress exploring the vegetation by stealth
Her velvet paws cut by the shards of the lives she's shattered

Now the legends say the shadow tiger is cursed
Any one who dares make an introduction
And share or invade her kingdom will come out worst
And mourn forever in the ruins of their world's destruction