I feel like the white lion
stuck in a cage for the rest of my days
feet set to tread a path barred and dusty
from all of those who trod before it.

The only excitement, the jangles of
keys from the keeper who runs to
throw carcass of rabbit, turkeys
through my bars for me
to render sustenance, incomplete.

I fear the white lion
hear my lonely roar and wonder
at such talons, canines now stolen
and feet dismembered, claws ripped
from their shackles, top-of-the-food-chain
fear desecrated.

And a genetic time-bomb too
ticks under my skin and theirs
as I sit and I listen to the lies
your children now share.

My line also ends, a mere stutter
in the sand, as the tides flow steady
and the last lion lingers.

And I am, too, held high like a beacon,
a warning, a message spanning
centuries, look, children, look!
See the mistakes of your ancestors.

See how her coat shines so very bright
that it reflects all seven colours
of the light? See how lonely and low
the last of a manipulated, mistaken,
misconstrued species can go?

She was drawn from her mother
mixed with her father, no she doesn't need him
and the others, why yes, all left
are her kin!

How wonderful, how quaint, you
know only ten now remain?
None in the wild of course, where
their life cannot sustain,
better here locked under our
constraints where we have
so much wonder, so much recreation
and education to gain.

And true, from this bleak place
they can never migrate
but look at her, no where else to go
this man-made mistake.

Don’t worry about the pacing,
the maddened, gleaming eye
the freedom they miss
out there? They would die!
And they know no other way
than this.

I know she looks sad, but
that’s just your feelings projecting,
they’re just animals, my darling,
you’re innocent, shouting in consternation
save her in the name of conservation!

But we are all white lions
all now endangered, our steps
are no freer, our lives all
subject to external changes and we
cannot move but for the cage
they have constructed, their
lives are impacted but our
wonder is not deducted.

I feel like the white lion
this ambassador of our greatness
this one mistake, so very clever,
engineered to engage us, these lives that
were wrought solely to entertain us.

I feel it, their future entwined in mine
and in humans across the ages.

Meaning of life designed, its sibilant message
dangerous, a dumb animal wandering
a set path, disregarded, destructive, aimless.