The striking ray of game awakens the hunter
His hunger seething amid the bushes of ber
A sickle batting out the frutescence of brush-berry
The scent of hooves invoking canine ferocity
That the child bears witness to with increased levity
His palate still sticky from rice stew, curried paste,
sweet potato, thorny dried sardine and mango pickle
His eyes fixed on the hunt, as the scourging army
moves for the kill in hoarse gutturals.
Now the insolence of the sun has no weapon
against the sturdy soldiers armed with instinct
borne down from ages in small acts of beastliness.
A mirror-impression of dark ages salvages
in this cult-drama of hunter and fugitive.
At last, the victim’s cry is heard amid applause
of back-slappers; teeth clenched the hound brings down
the enemy in flesh. Aeons ago, dinosaurs foraged upon
this very earth and preyed and lived for a million years.
The hog breathes its last in throaty gasps, its hair
shewn from burning, its entrails carved out for feast.
And then the chorus of singers will call on
the Gods of civilisation. Only tapered by time
to a paean of borrowed saints and crosses.
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