Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

What a shock to all the senses! The sights, the sounds, the
                                                                                      smells
The raw intensity of Africa. One memory will haunt me, though,
Long after we have ceased to talk about our holiday in Kenya.

Picture a lioness and five small cubs surrounded by a motley gang
Of fiery-eyed hyenas, made brave by hunger and by numbers!
The lioness can’t fight them all! They are too fast, too many.

Viewed from the safety of a Jeep and Japanese binoculars,
We can’t believe that this is happening a bare half mile away.
The gang is organised and purposeful. They’re moving in!

Herself attacked on every side, the mother cannot stop her cubs
Being separated out and slain. It happens to then one by one
Until at last she is alone with five small savaged bodies.

‘Couldn’t you have done something!’ the trauma’d tourists plead.
‘Like what?’ the Warden asks. ‘Well, shoot a few hyenas!’
‘The art of Conservation is - preserve the natural balance!’

We were still arguing at supper about the justice or injustice
Of this policy of laissez faire which is so faithfully adhered to
In Serengeti, but not the Game Reserves in neighbouring Uganda.

We messed our dahl round on our plates and knew that Africa
Was far too old and bloody-minded to be digested properly
In one two-week safari. But why so hot around the collar?

Was it just the killing of the cubs? The waste and the despair
Of mother-love? The unexpectedness of the attack which led
To murder in the afternoon? The sheer unfairness of it all?

Or was it that the tired lioness, struggling to defend her young,
Called to mind another victim of a gang of rank outsiders,
Who came from nowhere, did their damage and were gone?