Ode to the Last Jaguar

In The Jaguar Oracle, Book 1: The Trail to the Lonely Tree, Oracle the jaguar learns from a wounded Monarch butterfly of the prayer of the last jaguar of the Rio Grande Valley, whom Man killed “seventy springs ago.” That jaguar, Kahoo the Grave, prayed a prophetic prayer to the moon and the stars from the branches of the anacua tree just before he breathed his last. Oracle, from the Sian Ka’an of the Yucatán, Mexico, decides to put his paw forward to pick up where Kahoo left off as The Lord of the Valley and journeys to South Texas into a realm where the animals have “forgotten their names;” they do not remember what Adam spoke when he named them in the Garden of Eden. As Eden’s memory awakens among the animals, so do friendships and courage.

Kahoo’s prayer is a puzzle calling for a successor “from the north and from the sky,” but Oracle decides to do what he can even if he is from the south and from the earth. After crossing the waters of the drought-weary Rio Grande River and finding the tree where the dying Kahoo prophesied, Oracle sings an ode to the last jaguar.

I have heard your twilight prayer
I have heard your moaning
In my home I heard it there
Through creation groaning

You have left this ruddy earth
You have joined your fathers
I remain to make the search
And to kiss the waters

I will gladly take your place
I will gladly follow
I will step into the space
Fill up what is hollow

From the north I have not come
From the sky so endless
But my trail has forged a home
Friends out of the friendless

Here are paws upon the ground
Doing their own choosing
Stars and moon without a sound
Keep the prayer from losing

Any word or any part
I can’t plan or reason
Heaven knows the willing heart
Heaven knows the season

Farewell Kahoo of the Tree
I’ll take up your story
Carry it inside of me
Into Eden’s glory

© Kurt Frederick Mähler

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