Panther's Bell

Moon peeps through the misty curls
Mysteries of the world unfurl
Darkness weeps in mirror rain,
Black paws tread the forest lanes.

Fruit bats screech and soar in flight,
The ebony stalker prowls tonight.
What can the predator's purpose be
For him to walk so temptingly?

Is it the blood of new-born deer
Or the heady scent of her mother's fear?
Is it hunger or is it lust that draws
The fearsome snarl and glinting claws?

None but a distant tinkling bell
Through the forest's silence swells.
A maiden who, in village, dwells
Has come for a drink to the lonesome well.

The panther, as if in a haze
Finds his way through the leafy maze;
As wolves, smitten by moonlight,
Howl into the full moon night.

Crickets chirp and you can hear
Bat-claws pierce the water clear.
Who is this lady, out, fearless
In the hunting time of the wilderness?

Stardust smiles on flowing hair
As water drips to neverwhere,
He moves alone through rosy thorns,
To where passion for the bell was born.

It pulls him like an iron chain
Which cuffed to an ankle, pains.
Intoxicated by the sound
He walks deluded, tinkle-bound.

Slyly grins the wily moon
As he dances to the piper's tune.
Only, the piper here is she
Whose bell chimes so invitingly.

There the moon-bathed tinkler sways
As he, now weary of his chase
Crouching 'neath the bushes, spies
The nightly maiden's sightless eyes.

Teeth and claws on metal spark
As the hunter leaps in the thickening dark,
Satan smiles at fusing souls
When darkness swallows the forest whole.