A Cheetah
By some seen as the kitten of wild cat family,
but it is no joke
when at a speed of
one hundred and ten kilometre per hour
a meter and half long Cheetah
of sixty kilograms comes racing at you
with bared teeth and outstretched piercing claws
and the yellow-brown coat with black spots
shimmers and you can see
the breast muscles retracting in power
and while on patrol, you are ready to shoot it down
but frozen like the Bushman tracker
its final direction averted me from shooting
with the powerful light machinegun
and in parts of a second
the cheetah flashed past
going at speed for the impala
that I did not notice before
of which the eyes were open wide with terror
and in a moment the cheetah tripped it,
with jaws locked around its throat
in a cloud of red-brown dust
pulled it down and laid there motionless
until the antelope stopped struggling.
poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
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