She came from the forest.
\nI don’t know how long she sat
\nAt the edge of my camp,
\nStaring at me as I wrote in the near dark of dusk.<\/p>\n
My computer lit my face.
\nMust have looked so strange
\nTo a wild cat.<\/p>\n
I felt her gaze,
\nApparently,
\nAs one feels any creature’s gaze,
\nLike one soul saying to another,
\n“Hello”.<\/p>\n
We stared
\nIn silence
\nAt one another.<\/p>\n
She had the face of a lynx.
\nTufted ears,
\nRelaxed,
\nNot alert
\nNot on the hunt.<\/p>\n
Then,
\nSlowly,
\nShe
\nCrept<\/p>\n
Caution.<\/p>\n
What was this
\nstrange
\nnew
\ncreature?<\/p>\n
Just a head and shoulders lit up.
\nFloating in mid air.<\/p>\n
She stopped,
\nthen crept,
\nthen stopped again.<\/p>\n
“is that\u00a0bird or beast?” she thought.
\n“Edible?”<\/p>\n
My camera lay out of reach
\non the picnic table
\nAs I sat
\non my phone.<\/p>\n
Slowly she crept
\nCloser<\/p>\n
Just as slowly,
\nI moved
\nTo retrieve my phone.<\/p>\n
She was large for a lynx,
\nwith a long, fox like tail
\ntipped in black.<\/p>\n
Her two white front paws
\na stark contrast to the mottled orange
\nher primary colors.<\/p>\n
I realized a week later
\nshe was a hybrid
\nthe size of a small mountain lion
\nobvious lynx heritage.<\/p>\n
For some reason I wasn’t afraid.
\nI was mesmerized,
\nand so was she.<\/p>\n
As if we were old friends,
\nshe laid down in front of my campfire,
\nlicked\u00a0her paws,
\nswished\u00a0her tail
\nlike any old house cat in the company of love<\/p>\n
Finally, I had my phone in hand.<\/p>\n
Should I raise it up
\nphotograph this amazing moment,
\nOr enjoy her company
\nSilent until she must go?<\/p>\n
As with any tourist,
\nI had to get a picture,
\nand that,
\nof course,
\noffended her.<\/p>\n
She rose and slowly walked away.<\/p>\n
I managed to snap
\na handful of shots
\nas she melted back
\ninto the edge of the Sierra forest.<\/p>\n
I will never forget her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She came from the forest. I don’t know how long she sat At the edge of my camp, Staring at me as I wrote in the near dark of dusk. My computer lit my face. Must have looked so strange To a wild cat. I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28139,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27914\/revisions\/28139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}