Vagabond

[Posting here because I found I needed a place to park this piece, so as to be able to link to it as desired. It's the title poem of my 2005 book, Secret Leopard, published by Alyscamps Press.]

Down near the flat rocks at the pool

the secret leopard sniffs the day.

He tilts his head by the striped bamboo,

calling me: come and play.

When I was seven, and nine, and twelve,

I watched for his furious, bell-shaped head,

but they always dragged me back from the track.

'He is terrible,' they said.

They stuffed my ears with cottonwool,

they tied my hands and feet to the bed,

but still the house shook silkenly

to his broad, electric tread.

That was a long, long time ago.

Now I am grown and free to run

to the white rocks and the dim bamboo

and the velvet hood of the sun.

He has been waiting by the yellow pool,

padding the black leaves patiently,

holding the flame in his narrow eyes,

wild and slow as the sea.

His handsome haunches are molten gold,

his perilous paws flow red through the shade.

You may mew forever from your pitiful bed —

I am deep in the spiky glade.

I will not tell of the spotted jungle

with silver trees that eat the sun.

I will not tell of the tawny trails

where I and the lavish leopard run.

 © Rosemary Nissen 1974

 from Universe Cat, Pariah Press (Melb.) 1985

and in Secret Leopard, Alyscamps Press (Paris) 2005.

First published A Second Australian Poetry Book for Children (Oxford)

Also in Secondary English Book 3, Macmillan.