It is raining on the serengeti,
darkening the dry trees, lighting

the grass as a season of dust
falls loose. down on the plains

there is a lion. he is muscle and teeth,
he is mane and bone. he is instinct

and simple will, his own dark beauty.
later he will bear our fears and his hunger

into the broadening darkness.
but right now he is only sleeping.

© 2014 Heidi Wallis

Image “Sleeping Kitty” © Flickr user Venky

H. Wallis received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University, Chico, where she studied with Jeanne Clark, Ellen Walker, and Joanne Harris Allred. She currently works as a copywriter and finds time for poetry on the ferry between work and her home in Sausalito. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Critical Pass Review, Existere, The MacGuffin, Pennsylvania English, and Watershed Review.