Requiem for a Tiger


There is no one, really, to mourn her death.
Her eyes, they say, were like a wraith’s
Heavy and sombre, unlike any animal
Something born in blazing fire!
They say, they know, when a tiger is a tiger.

They call themselves all-rational.
That the embodiment of a man-eater
Is an abomination – tag her a murderer!
Unable to kill or secure her meal,
Something that should not exist in real.

To what end is her life, what was her story?
A lifetime spent reckoning deaths – nay, murders
Cast out not by her own kin but human furore
Erased from existence by unsympathetic orders!
They say, they know, when a tiger is a tiger.

There is no one, really, to mourn her death
Yet she lives on under everyone’s breath
Under what name –  scornful or profane
In what story – irrational, of an old witch’s bane
Or tragic, a mother who died without a name.


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