Sebastian Hayes

The mountain lion, or cougar, is unlike any of the other big cats : there is something intangible and mysterious about him or her, as Robert Redford, who founded a refuge for this endangered species, rightly stated. It is this quality that I have tried to express in the following  poem

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within  your endless wanderings over crags and hills,

What thoughts, what idle dreams, pass  through your fertile  mind?

Neither at rest nor restless, a strange purpose fills

Your studied, stealthy gait, with never a glance behind;

Remote and self-contained, you represent the will,

But not the will to power, only the will to be;

Stalker and seeker, you will haunt the mountains still

When man has gone, his cities covered by the sea.

This earth you is not your real home : alone of all

The beasts that pace the wildness and traverse the snow,

You feel the unheard, unseen world and can recall

The distant source of life which in ourselves we know;

Throughout my life I’ve known you, now and at the end

You are my spirit guide and helper, trusted friend.

                                                                               Sebastian Hayes