We Are No Cowards

In the jungle of our collective heritage In our wild teaming with endless species of flora and fauna In the savannah, the tropics and the deserts of our kingdom There is place for neither the honest nor the peace-loving I am not adding to adages, I am talking reality I am talking about the principle of virtue And of the practicality of vice I am talking about the cat family of our jungle life That is celebrated for disrupting our conscientous existence They are deemed meritorious because we are miserable Because they are admired, our clamours go unheard We are lowly, we are vulnerable, we are defenseless We set our table with vegetation, but graze them with trembling We respect their pathways but they don't respect ours Under the lush delicacies of our livelihood, they ambush us By the edge of our collectively-owned flows, they await us They parade majestically and in showy antics, they stretch and growl We see their prowess and bravery flaunted, and we cower into shades They mock our meekness, even our gentleness, they deride They mistake our peacefulness with cowardice We are no cowards; we are only not favoured with their strength We recognize our weakness the way they recognize their strength And we bow loyally to their wishes and decline their contests But our every decline provokes and challenges their ego Our surrender and our protest are alike to them Our existence is their headache, yet their means of livelihood we are They will not stop until they have suppressed us into extinction Unfortunately, when we are gone they shall be gone too They shall comprehend the truth but very late That though the cat rules, the jungle shall breathe without it But without us, there is neither the jungle nor the cat