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The Lion of the Dawn

The sun sliced through the ample sighs
Of the foggy dawn and grazed
The inert life in each
Quiescent leaves
Of the forest's canopy.
The world was a burning orb
In the misty horizon
Of its arid skin.
Every fraction started
Rousing into life,
From the blossoming buds
Of the wild bougainvilleas,
The elucidation of
The forest floor clad in moss,
The subtle tremble
In the boughs
Of the yawning tress,
The lifting waves
Of the hampered grass,
The fading of
The cricket's revelry
Paving way
For the cacophonous harmony
Of chirping birds;
And there was something sublime
Inside the chromospheres
Of the fulmination of life.
Something supple as
The battering of eyelashes
That is all the same surreal
That it can set forth
Colossal waves to another
Acknowledging eye.

Unfortunately,
Only a lionhearted soul
Could grapple this in sentience
Without suffocating the feral splendor.

In the belly of the shuddering abstraction
Lies a pristine vista
Of an olive pond.
It was making billowing ripples
Instigated by a pink unwavering tongue.
Massive paws rested on the fringes
Of the sodden aqueous mirror,
Serpentine tail wags in svelte grace,
And tuft suspicious ears
Twitch invariably as
An immensely sized and aloof head
Of gilded ropy hair
Bows into the mirror.
The steely gold orbits
That drown in the dithering cesspool
Mused on the pockmarks and scars
That squandered the dazzles
Of the tawny skin
He used to muse upon.
But then again,
With every roll of the undulating water,
He had seen the forest bloom
In a looming dance of ethereal flames
In the unfathomable surface
Of the impenetrable membranes
Of the pond.

The forest emerged vigorously
In its sedentary breathing,
Cloying the qualms of a
Ferocious cat in the distorted
Reflection of the pond
Of delusions.
The lion's heart was made of glass,
Frangible and brittle;
His bones were hollow
And they constantly quaver.
The lion's heart roared and prowled
Ripping the evanescence
Of both anguish and bliss.
The lion was weak
And easy to topple
But he burned of golden cinders
That spoke of a fervent desire
To stand in the front line of surrealistic
Crusades of heart
Without any remedy.

The forest has ears
And he can hear the vying
In every pounding of the forlorn chamber
Of the lion's heart.
The forest has eyes
And he can see the lion rising
Every time the sun would shatter
The mistral darkness of the eve
With zealous desire for life
In the verisimilitude of
The breaking dawn itself.
The forest had no tongue
But it had called the lion several times,
And the leaves pranced
For the wind to carry its message,
Brushing the laments of the lion.
The forest called him "The Lion of the Dawn".
And the forest could only brood
In the whim of each gloaming,
That he could never speak of
What the lion was
And no one would ever find
The lion in his lanky,
Unattractive and farcical veneer.

poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
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