Cheetahs (poem) by Danae Wilkin on AuthorsDen

Cheetahs
by Danae Wilkin → (All Poetry by Danae Wilkin)
Sunday, July 19, 2020 Rated "PG13" by the Author.

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We best beware, endangered animals can be human animals. Nature is destructive as well as creative.

Gotta get up Storm dripping Weekend fun contraction No sun for Wildlife Safari Cheetahs will have to wait Instead, masks and shopping But first, A roadside curiosity shop Gems from round the world A birthday coming, Despite the pestilence I find her a present Hollow geodes For neck and ears That sparkle from bubbles Of volcanic destruction Nature’s way of thinning That we try to prevent Back to grim reality Gotta get groceries, More groceries, Too many groceries No room in the fridge No room in the freezer Wasted food Like old dead horses Who never make it to the hungry cheetahs Rotting like us in ditches No more room in truck morgues Nature moves on Passes us by As we once looked at the endangered “animals” And pointed

Reviewed by Regis Auffray

Reviewed on September 2, 2020

Insightful and powerful with apt and timely meaning expressed, Danae. Love, peace, and best wishes to you,

Regis. 🌺🍁

Reviewed by Ronald Hull

Reviewed on July 23, 2020

A perfect allegory for the human race using cheetahs as a stand-in for humans under lockdown. Many cheetahs are now confined to caged areas where they can rest from poachers and threats from other animals. Some are orphans. Some are wounded. But all are in danger from numerous threats outside the wild world, most humanly caused.

Kudos for your insight into the human condition under the pandemic. Stanford has an Internet forum coming up showing how the pandemic will create a more sustainable world for every creature, including us.

Ron

Reviewed by Budd Nelson

Reviewed on July 21, 2020

sad but true

Reviewed by Michael Schafer

Reviewed on July 20, 2020

The reality is indeed grim. They say the pendulum swings one way, and then swings back. I sure hope that's true, or we and many others will be gone and cockroaches will rule the earth.

Reviewed by Lark Pogue

"Rotting like us in ditches." Yes, it was bound to happen with the greed and stupidity of human kind. Sad but inevitable. You almost make me want to write again.

Reviewed by E Phillips

Reviewed on July 19, 2020

With a paucity of adjectives and adverbs, you have sketched a portrait of life that does not favor us and our centric notions that all of Nature is here for our pleasure. Instead, you have shown us that life is fragile from the simplest to the complex. Perhaps better said as "we have met the enemy, and we are it." Yours is a stark insight into this tangled web we weave around reality.

Reviewed by Andy Turner

Indeed, we are the animal that�s facing extinction.
And we seem to be hastening it at maximum speed.

Reviewed by Odin odin@aflx.com

Intriguing read as one is left anticipating anything but the last stanza's segue into the poem's multiple metaphoric meaning. The mirror effect of pointing "at the endangered'animals'" lifts the poem to the level of empathy for all of nature... ourselves included. Kudos for the inordinate structure and flow.