The Panther

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars

has grown so weary, it can hold no more.

To him, there seem to be a thousand bars

and back behind those thousand bars no world.

The soft the supple step and sturdy pace,

that in the smallest of all circles turns,

moves like a dance of strength around a core

in which a mighty will is standing stunned.

Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides

up soundlessly — . An image enters then,

goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs —

and in the heart ceases to be.