Barbara Foster

Snow Leopard

Monarch of the clouds
Leaping from peak
to peak
In motion seamless
Do you chant mantra
To a yellow-eyed deity?
Expiate karma from
former lives?
Predators flee your
heraldic head
Within solitude's magic
circle
Do you welcome awakened
ones?

Few have climbed high
enough
To sight you
Stalking the blue sheep
scattering wild herds
Dawn light of Himalayan
peaks
Obscures your lithe form
It initiates, awestruck, intone
The sacred words
Efflugent, will you appear?

Mythic beast, if I follow
your tail
Long as a tall man
Will you guide to
Enlightenment?
Searchers too close risk
Freezing, or falling off
The crystal mountain
One day, will you break through
The clouds, into my meditations?
And lead me up the path to your home.