Less is More by Geralyn Pinto

Less is more, of course                                                                       

That’s why we’ve shown them how 

Bright, bounded bamboo thickets

Are better than sprawling, untidy rain forests.

The zoo workers have even crafted a salt lick

Painstakingly patting sodium chloride

Onto the side of a gash in the earth

Which has municipal water flowing through it

And pretends to be a forest stream.

(The real river that loitered around

Splendid, aimless and occasionally wild

Was long ago domesticated to factory use

So that a distant CEO with greasy charm

Could declare dividends to a grateful public).

Rock surfaces were carefully constructed,

Neat little dens built for delicate young cubs

And a deep ravine dug all around. Just so.

The only thing they did, which you probably

Never saw in raw tiger country,

Was to erect a bright red board

Warning Homo sapien visitors to the park

That this was the lair of Panthera tigris,

Ruthless, lone hunter with a predilection, (sometimes)

For human blood.

Whoever did it hadn’t reckoned that two legs

Are better than four;

Two hands cleverer, faster than paws

Furnished with pads and claws;

One well-organized brain superior to

Brute muscle, olfactory sense and night vision.

So there’s no real need to worry

Because in ourselves we’ve proved, haven’t we,

Beyond a niggle of doubt that

Less is more?

Geralyn Pinto, India