The instinct

The folly and the triumph of the land tiger
The stare of an animal seeks out the shapes dancing outside the jungle
The swing of it's head and drop of it's paw as he readies for a tangle
There are teeth bared, enthusiasm and hunger to mangle

It wants to live cried the heavens
Live, fight, eat and breed in these lands
It turns it's head unafraid of the wetter months to come
Stuck on the scent of some unfortunate creature

That land tiger and it's cumbersome paws
it's satellite ears, thick shrugging posture
but under that skin is a heart that beats to kill
A mind that would devise the where and how

Slow it may be to learn he will rise
and the instinct like wine will have matured
upon the land a fiend top heavy in the dry
post monsoon lean grinning hidden in the night's colluding mist