Numbers
Poem
Numbers
Sharks, dolphins and gannets are gathering.
The winter feast. Not long to wait.
A billion sardines
will coast along soon, up the Indian Ocean
on their way from colder seas.
A bat eared fox decides its time for lunch,
ambles along to the crater lake,
dives in among the marching swarm of flamingos.
Too massed to get away, the pencil legs of one
are pierced by the fox’s teeth.
Wildebeest and zebra spread across the plains.
For lions its hardly a search.
There they are, munching lazily on the grass
while great cats melt into the ground
and flatten their ears.
There is no safety in numbers.
Numbers just tell the hungry where to look.
They’ve built their billboard (Restaurant now open)
so some defence like running fast
or swirling in deceptive masses helps a bit
but travelling in numbers won’t do.