It is estimated that there are somewhere between 3,000 to 6,000 snow leopards left on earth. Prized and poached for their beautiful coats, they survive in some of the planet's most challenging terrain. Due to deforestation and dam projects, they have suffered a signficant loss of their natural habitat and food sources. In countries where they live, such as Pakistan and India-administered Jammu and Kashmir, armed conflicts have further imperiled the cats, with a disregard for species preservation among the fighters and the flourishing of an illegal fur trade.
Snow leopards, also called "Ghost Cats", can hiss, growl, wail and chuff, but unlike other large cats, they cannot roar. I met this shy creature in a dream, and the poem below is in honor of its arduous and endangered existence, and its historical associations with the gods.
For
Snow Leopard/Honoring a Dream
From
the crest of the god’s head,
you
traverse the craggy ancient spines
of
the Rock People.
Vertebrae
by vertebrae
you
carry down the sky.
Its
frigid white breath tears through the air
like
rapacious fangs
and
howls at the impassive, stony faces
that
bear the brunt of its fury,
with
you,
the
sole and silent witness
to
its brutality.
Your
green eyes blaze
with
inner light but offer no warmth.
There
is none to be found
in
this timeless, unyielding
Otherworld.
Here,
survival is a story
of
wits and of will,
of
stealth and of strength,
where
hunger and beauty can kill you
as
readily as any man.
Dreamy
crystalline blankets
yield
to one-way trap doors beneath
the
novice foot,
and
the lies we tell ourselves
to
carry on
are
sheer as the ice that freezes closed
our
frightened eyes.
The
spirits of this land
seem
cruel
and
harsher than they need be.
Or
perhaps safe passage
before
their steely gaze
requires
each soul to speak its truth
deep
into their brittle bones:
How
much do you want your life?
Ghost
Cat,
you
alone know the razor’s edge
where
land meets sky
amid
the blinding haze,
where
antlers mark the graves
of
those who offered or renounced themselves
to
you.
the
hunter and the hunted,
survivor
and survivalist,
earth-bound
immortal,
nearly
extinguished by our greed.
You
met me in the East
in
a humid summer dream,
with
a dare
to
journey North,
to
follow into unknown terrain
your
mysteries cloaked by snow,
made
treacherous by ice
and
marauders
that
might drive me from the trail.
My
fierce and exacting guide,
your
patience is as thin
as
the arctic air,
your
mercy as scarce
as
easy prey.
I
struggle to gain purchase
in
your sure-footed wake,
to
trust that I am held
when
I cannot see the path,
or
hear the approach
of
what will feed me next,
when
I cannot smell the fire
that
draws me
toward
an indecipherable horizon.
Met
only with your stoic silence,
I
stifle the tormented cries
I
yearn to hurl
against
the shrieking wind.
Your
coveted coat
reminds
me
how
to walk with shadow
when
daylight deceives,
when
reason fails and I have no use
for
words.
I
am imperfect and I am afraid,
but
I am willing.
Ghost
Cat,
teach
me perseverance and courage,
to
ascend to the heights you know by heart,
unbound
from illusion,
to
converse with the gods
by
way of the earth.
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