Pawprints Of Day

• Brooke Hill, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2013

The sun slinks over the horizon like a prowling leopard
Then bounds out into the morning,
Turning the cool of the dawn into a summer's day
As hot as the blood of a fresh kill.
The tall wild grasses, dry as fur,
Sway gently as tails in the breeze,
Breeze like the pant of a hot lioness.
The hills and ranges are tigers draped in rest over the land
A haze of shadow and golden sun on orange rocks
Stalking...skulking...slowly...silently...
Heat shimmers on the plain like the dust of a sprinting cheetah
Shade, scatteres few and far, are pawprints in the burning sand.

The sun leopard gazes to the west
And strides majestically onto the horizon
The light recedes, the land darkens and cools
The moonles night a black panther, strong, sleek, graceful and dangerous
Life resurfaces, a pride emerges from the grass.
A game, an energy sparks in the minds of hunter and prey
All ears are cocked, tall, sharp, straight
A cougar drags the first kill silently up a tree as the night hunt begins,
A hunt only ended by the mane and silent roar of the rising sun