I Am Cecil

I Am Cecil

I Am Cecil – The outrage is global –  his legacy will be powerful – his memory will not fade. I wrote this as a tribute to a magnificent lion butchered by a common, insignificant little man with a putrid, black soul. Cecil you will continue to shine as brightly as any star in the beautiful African night.  

I Am Cecil

I stand on holy ground
My once strong body is gone
Torn by knives and greedy hands
My beautiful head sliced as an ornament
My hide stripped from my bones
My remains discarded in the dirt
To return to the dust
My physical body is shredded and torn
But you cannot touch my great lion spirit.

I stand on holy ground
I sense my lioness as she calls in the night
I see her test the wind and pinpoint the stars
She watches the cubs at play – innocent and curious
She knows of their danger now
The mysterious cycles of life and death
They too will be killed
We were a family and you destroyed us
Without a thought or a care
Your savagery is unforgiving.

I stand on holy ground
While a man with murder on his mind and
Greed in his stone cold heart
Invaded our wild and special places
You brought your ugliness and your arrogance
And your thoughts of killing and destruction
To the centre of our beautiful African home
You lack any understanding of Nature and her ways
The fine nuances of kindness and civility
Are beyond your limited understanding
You taste the kill thrill as the light leaves my eyes
You are an unremarkable man – a sad agent of evil.

I stand on holy ground
My life has been taken and cut short
By a monstrous and vulgar man
He is too ignorant to know the extent of his evil
He is too selfish to comprehend animal love
He is too arrogant to see me as an equally sentient being
He is too stupid to know that animals yearn to live
He is too wicked to know that he stole the gift of a beautiful life
He is too blind to see the beauty in my amber eyes
He has broken my body – he has sentenced me to death
But he cannot touch my spirit
And he will never understand
The incredible power that I have left behind
I am Cecil and I am still here.

I stand on holy ground
I smell the crisp morning air
And I know the beauty of life
I touch the soft earth under my paws
And I know the nobility of my ancestors
I see the mighty, burning African sun
And I am electric with the energy of animal love
I hear the haunting call of a hundred birds on the wing
And I am drawn back to my roots
I taste the cool water of the living, pulsing plain
And I am cleansed of my suffering
The stirring of my lion legacy is powerful
The coward has gone to ground – hiding and blaming.

I stand on holy ground
You will see me in the dust of a sunbeam and on a star lit night
In the reflection of a sparkling wave
In the colours of a rainbow and the soft wave of a branch
You will me know as I shake my head
And my black mane dances in the sun
I am Cecil and I am still here.

Rosemary Wright – July 29, 2015