On Seeing Lions...
On Seeing Lions for the First Time
Phineas stopped the Land Rover abruptly. He hopped out, stooped, and drew a circle around the prints. "Lions." Determined we should see cats our final day in Savuti, he drove into the bush. I heard my heart beat in my head.
Within ten minutes, he had tracked them: two males, brothers likely, a coalition defending turf.
They languished in the midmorning sun, aloof, bored with us. We timidly snapped shutters until the larger one got up and walked directly toward the vehicle.
Phineas caught our eye in the rearview mirror and whispered, "Don't stand, don't talk, don't move, don't do anything at all, and he will walk around us." I didn't breathe or take a picture until the cat had cornered the van. He hid himself behind a tree, escaping publicity.
Just when I thought I was safe, stopped to reload my camera, the other, who had been sleeping, followed, moving so close I could have touched him.
It wasn't until night in our primitive tent, spiders the size of half-dollars on the wall,
I assessed emotions I had spent. Too near their raw and awful beauty, overwhelmed by this peril, this Eden, I lay listening to my husband's heart and cried.
Savuti
Darting Fishers
Haiku
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