Catchment
When the she-leopard stalks and pounces on
an infant antelope. which one
am I rooting for? The newborn
I saw slip, moments ago, free
from the birth canal, struggle to its feet,
stagger against its mother’s teat
and begin to nurse, both nervously
twitching tail stubs in the heat
and flies of the equator
or the big cat, in whose camouflaged lair
three helpless youngsters wait
so starved for meat that she dares
venture out to hunt by dailight?
I watch this living-color film unfold
with a friend, whose English bull
mastiff pup—as if
New Hampshire were the veldt, as if
its life depended on the chase—
leapt up last moth to snatch
a newborn doe kid from her arms
and snapped its neck with one good shake.
Later, watching the after-afterglow
flush the whole sky pink, then darken,
we can almost discuss it, good and harm.
Nature a catchment of sorrows.
We hug each other. No lesson drawn.
from Nature Poems by Maxine Kumin
Viking Penguin Inc. NY,1989
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