The Panther Poem by Christine Natale

I took my little Christopher
On an outing to the zoo.
We saw elephants and hippos
And a baby kangaroo;

We saw otters and flamingoes
And sleeping polar bears;
There were ostriches and llamas
And the lions in their lairs.

The monkeys all were silly
As they swung from tree to tree;
The gorillas looked as if they thought
They should be looking in at me.

But then I saw a panther
And the joy within me froze -
He slept upon a caged, dead tree
In sullen, black repose.

There was no life within that cage,
Except within his breast
And all the fire of Africa
Was tamely seen at rest.

The floor was hard and cold and bare,
The bars were black and high.
No other living thing was there,
Just people passing by.

The tree was dead, as I have said,
The panther on it lay,
His paws hung down so listlessly
There was no room for play.

There was no room for running free
The wild beast was trapped.
His yellow eyes glowed out at us,
The life within him sapped.

Oh what will be the price for us
Who cage the creatures wild -
Who treat the royal majesty
As a plaything for a child?

I wished to set him free again
To prowl through shade and sun;
But as I turned, I realized
The damage had been done.