Animals of the World Unite! (Part Eight)

by Patrick Campbell
(Alicante,Spain)

Then Lion, who'd been quite silent since
his woeful failure to convince
the delegates he should compère
the meeting, laughed and mocked the Chair.
"How comforting to know the farmer
is our knight in shining armour !
Will our envoy be the one
to confiscate the hunters' guns,
so I can safely turn the page
and contemplate a ripe old age?"
Warming to his theme, he chortled,
"it seems the farmer's now immortal
and now can wave a magic wand,
so all our problems will be solved!
Nincompoops! How dense you've been!
I’ll explain just what I mean.
Let’s say a chicken has been killed,
and Badger helps the police to build
a portrait of the guilty beast
seen fleeing from his midnight feast.
The villain's fur was browny red;
his tail was bushy, Badger said.
He'd pointed ears and a cunning face;
It’s not the hardest murder case !
So tell me, who in his right mind, _
would ask the fox to solve the crime?
But isn't that just what you’ve done?
The farmer's hoodwinked everyone.
By choosing him, you're surely picking
a fox to represent us chickens."

But Deepak, half-way up the tree,
felt brave enough to disagree.
"Pussycat, you're such a chump!"
Insulted, Lion prepared to jump
and finish Deepak off for good.
The farmer laughed; in no way could
the jungle king leap up so high
without some wings to help him fly.
But Lion took off and just kept going
like an Airbus or a Boeing;
and the last thing Deepak saw
was a pair of mighty jaws.
just about to bite his head off.
But he was lucky, for instead of
being eaten in his prime,
he woke up, thankfully just in time.

Discovering he was still in bed
with no-one biting off his head,
but just his loving wife and dog,
sleeping like proverbial logs,
he looked out of his bedroom window
and saw his friend the Tamarind so
tall and strong with fruits galore.
“How good to be awake once more!
Thank goodness it was all a dream,”
he thought, “but still, I’ll play my part
in making people more aware
of all the suffering animals bear.”