Sestina: Mountain Tiger
Forgive me, please, I am a mountain tiger.
My stripes, perhaps, had camouflaged from you
Sharps claws long honed on boar and fleeing deer.
A tiger can apologize for nothing.
It wanders wordless on the stony mountain,
Its language lost to solitude and wind.
Forgive me, please, I am the rushing wind
That ruffles up the fur of sleeping tigers.
I’m cold because I’ve blown in from the mountain.
I never meant to steal your warmth from you.
Without the things it moves, a wind is nothing
But air that will not stay, holds nothing dear.
Forgive me, please, I am the timid deer
That gallops faster even than the wind.
Startled by your approach, startled by nothing,
I fled from you as from a hungry tiger.
Be still a while, and I’ll creep back to you,
Till then I hide in copses on the mountain.
Forgive me, please, I am the great stone mountain.
In dreams, I speed to you, fleet as the deer.
Awake, I stand like stone and wait for you,
The words I send you made cold by the wind.
My heart is yours, if you get past the tiger.
Come to me soon, or I’ll erode to nothing.
Forgive me, please, for truly I am nothing:
I’m neither grand or solid like the mountain,
But made of words and masks, a paper tiger.
My words alone run fast, fleet as the deer,
Weak, weightless things, as empty as the wind.
Yet worthless words are all I have for you.
Forgive me, please, it’s all I ask of you.
If I don't have your pardon, I have nothing.
Go if you will – how could I hold the wind? –
But won’t you let me back onto your mountain?
Or do I ask too much this time, my dear,
I who would be once more your mountain tiger.
I search for you in mists on this bleak mountain,
Where nothing seems to live – not even deer.
The wind is ice. Somewhere, a hungry tiger.
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