DABrown

Chicago Police Shoot Dead a Cougar in Roscoe Village Alley
(headlines from Chicago Tribune: April 2008)

"On what wings dare he aspire?"
The Tyger ____William Blake

News reports were factual -
Chicago police shot dead an animal
identified as a male cougar.
Shocking, unusual.
"Why kill it?" the overwhelming response,
although most agreed in the end the danger
posed outweighed an idea of capture.
Photo coverage displayed the golden
furred, muscular wrought and limp body
lying sideways, extremities reaching outward
macabre, as if caught in a freeze-frame shot
a silently languid lope.
Death in a noisy, grimy alley.

Months later a new article
reported DNA traced the dead animal's
roots to wild relatives from Black Hill region
of South Dakota. He traveled quite far
folks remarked, beyond his familiar ground
pushing boundaries, following desire,
adapting to human presence on the way.
Was he pulled by some mysterious force,
invisible thread of dreadful plight that
wove a fierce whisper into his heart
assigned fearless motion to his paws?
Risk stalked his brain through forest,
prairie, concrete and brick.
He arrived to a distant place of ancestral
memory once called home.
A woman, breathless, told a TV camera
when she sighted him
she was shocked and terrified.
What then had formed
in the furnace of his brain
cornered, in that alley?
Out of place, claws clicking
on cement, hard
lines spearing sight, human
scent smeared on everything.
He dared.
He sought.
Reflected desire once resided
in burning eyes - fire stolen.
What have we lost?




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