Tiger

Contributed by Katherine Baker

Tiger, beauty blazing steady,
trembling muscles, poised and ready.
Summoned forth, a predator's might,
orbs of flaming yellow ignite.
Secreting tips hang from swift jaws,
blurred, hidden lines, a stalker's crawl.
Hunger pursues a bounding charge,
surrendering a roam once large.
O what awesome beauty savage,
when ravager becomes the ravaged!
A creature scarred, yet life remains,
INEVITABLE - now but vain.
Spreading shadows, themselves explain,
cruel be beauty, for beauty pains.