The Anteater and the Leopard
I am an anteater, creeping, hoping to make it out alive.
I need to eat to survive, and the brown, small, juicy ants live only here.
Many eyes stare at me, most terrified brown mice with tails long and thin as string.
But one pair with eyes as red as the evil stinging ants belongs to something else.
The two red lights in the bushes sprang out as a leopard that licked his lips greedily.
Closer it moved, the padded feet lightly stepping through the silent waving grass.
I wanted to flee, but the red eyes stared deep into mine, and I froze in fear.
Then I was a mouse and I fled through the grass to safety, or so I thought.
The trees towered above me like clawing monsters lurking in the shadows.
A figure ran in the trees, and fear paralyzed me, but it was just a harmless monkey.
For what else could climb through the trees like an acrobat in a circus.
Relief rushed through me, but then I felt the breath of something large behind me.
I turned around, already knowing just what this beast was.
And it was, the leopard had followed me, and safety was still far away.
But then I was a chameleon, and I blended with the trees, and then I was safe.
I had left the forest and the leopard would not follow me beyond here.
So I walked through the grass, back to my family.
The terror is over.
Lhasa
I try to soldier on
To get to the sacred city
I remember her voice
“Be gone, to Lhasa”
I shake the memory out of my head
We have adapted to ice and snow
On the crooked cliffs of the highlands
The distant grunts of yaks
The far away city lights
The sun reflected off the snow
The crunching footsteps
The dead water
Smeared in hail and frozen
I trudge on through the mountains of death
To get to the sacred city
A place of steaming soups
A place of crackling fire
A place of heart-warming dancing
A place of laughing children
I left so much behind me
My thoughts go back to that faithful day
The snowstorm buried our town
We all tried to flee
A collecting of snow slipped off the roof
It buried my wife in snow
I tried to dig down
Only once, she cried
“Be gone, to Lhasa”
And I simply gave up
I force the memory out of my head
I have not seen grass for ages
All there is becomes petrified
A dead animal, glazed in ice
I fight the urge to lie down
My breath is a fog
Storm clouds turn black
Slabs of cold rock in the distance
But then I think of the city
The warm fires and hot soups
My family welcoming me
“Be gone, to Lhasa”
The voice is still clear
I stand up again
The chances are against me, but
I try to soldier on
Samuel Wolf
Age 13, Grade 7
Packer Collegiate Institute
Gold Key