The gazelle sits in quiet repose,  
In its flighty heart, it knows,  
There is no predator nearby,  
And it scans the sky with an eagle's eye.  

In the grass, fifty feet away,  
The lion waits in the heat of the day,
It stalks the gazelle with the silent tread of a ghost,  
As it patrols on its outpost.  

The gazelle tenses quickly, it knows there's something there,  
It stands in the grass, looking everywhere.  
There! Near the tree! The tip of an ear,  
It starts to bound away, the lion very near.  

The lion starts as the gazelle runs,  
It licks its lips in anticipation of great fun,  
The chase is on! The lion gains,  
Its tawny coat covered in mud stains.  

It takes only a moment, but the gazelle turns,  
The lion skids to the side and the soft ground churns,  
It leaps after the gazelle, the tail of which is seen,  
The lion jumps on the gazelle's back, their tussle is lost in the green-

A moment later, the lion jumps up, the gazelle lying dead,  
The former grabs the broken body and begins to walk ahead,  
The vultures shrilly cry,  
The gazelle had been killed in only a blink of an eye.

And for a moment I'm a gazelle
who hasn't yet fallen
to a lion's teeth
For the night I give in
to the stampede
and--this time for good--keep going

Going, going,
wind beaten as a sailor,
though I may be
flying the way a peacock does
(It's only a feeling, like peace is to a dove)

Let me say something
about the animals--
they keep going, too
They keep going for us
(I am no vegetarian, but sometimes,
instead of meat, I only need
to eat dust.)

For the same reason, I go on
until fed to something larger
than this small person inside
And, like an animal, I don't ever
feel the need to cry