This poem inspired by folklore tales i heard during my recent travels through Northeast Asia.

The Tiger’s Farewell
By John Herlihy (Tuesday 30/1/18)

The facts stand unalterable as facts always do;
They move into posterity with an echo’s mew.
The tiger dead amid rocks on the jungle floor;
Its noble spirit departed thru the shadow door.

The poet, however, sees far beyond the detail;
What lies between the lines tells the final tale.
Beware of those truths that are born of a word.
That echo mystical legend never before heard.

The tiger roams at will in the Qinling Mountains,
Drawing life sustenance from nature’s fountains.
In the wild, he goes places nobody really knows,
Free spirit of nature whose doors never do close.

The villagers in the area were terrorized, undone;
A footprint was seen whose size was next to none.
Some pigs went missing, then random goats gone;
Terror lay upon them for the children newly born.

The tiger will be the death of us; the tiger must die;
Fear echoed thru the village, no clear reason why.
They gathered guns, wrapped colored sarongs tight,
Their eyes sharp, ears open, and hearts in full fright.

The heat oppressive and so was the passing of time;
Every moment is filled with anguish of another kind.
Their resolve at the village fire now impending dread;
The images of the tiger’s attack now filled their head.

Soon the tiger was sighted at rest there in the distance;
Its noble head amid the grasses offering no resistance.
The markings of the face sheltering wild native innocence;
The pure symmetry of nature’s design offers no penitence,

The assorted rifles and guns shot at once at Big Fu directly;
In unison, their collective retribution did execute perfectly.
The villagers never identified the tiger by its rightful name,
Lest they bring upon themselves any wrath or undue blame.

The wild animal knew not what happened his mind to break
His roar caused the earth and the mountain itself to shake
The sound was sullen, angry, sad, powerful, sober, and deep
It roused the birds, trees shed their leaves, the sky did weep

Big Fu stumbled then to a standstill in the middle of a slope;
The men saw the tiger’s pure, bewildered eyes without hope.
For once, one of nature’s doors was closing as another opened;
The tiger saw before him now the shadow door fully betokened.

The look in the tiger’s eyes was etched in the villager’s hearts,
As the primitive glory of the animal takes its leave and departs.
Lai Lee, one of the villagers, felt come upon him a kind of regret;
His shot had struck the tiger’s forehead, a sight never to forget.

The bitter roar shook the souls of the hunters beyond measure,
Sounding the end of a life once considered a national treasure.
The men stood up behind the rocks, motionless for a long while;
Their brains empty, no joy of revenge, their faces without smile.

The villagers knew that they had heard the tiger’s final farewell;
Emotions poured from their hearts as from a deep cavernous well.
Their offspring and future offspring would never hear such a voice;
To claim they had heard such a voice as a cause to fear or rejoice.

Lai Lee, the man responsible for the kill, turned to take his leave;
The memory would endure his entire life and never offer any reprieve.
“Let us return to the village,” he said to the others, “this day is done.”
They left the mountain slope, but the memory they could not outrun.