The Last Dragon (For all the animals driven into extinction)

The great Chimère raised his regal head

And mourned the last of his children who lay dead

At his clawed feet, their beauty and perfection a thing to grieve

If only for a moment before it was time

To raise his massive wings to leave

This place he’d shared with his lifelong mate

Whose body was gone, her slaughter their kind’s fate.

Wherever the Beautiful One lay with her broken crimson scales

Chimère’s own heart couldn’t help but stay

For all of time without end.

The Drako would give his heart to only one

Until the far distant death of the galaxy’s sun.

The blue of his scales matched the sky

Giving no reason to look up, no reason to ask why

The massive eloquent beast should fly overhead unheard,

Not a beat of wing, not a whispered word,

Only the drop of tears that fell from blue skies,

From his beautiful lavender-blue catlike eyes.

He’d had friends who were human

In towns nearer Loch Lomond

But he was a prince of his kind

The nine black ridges along his spine left no doubt

To any who knew this obvious sign of royalty.

He could never live in fear

And the bottomless Loch Ness was near,

Its darkness suited him well.

The lake’s surface was as smooth as glass

It shimmered for a moment as Chimère Drako’s mass

Broke the surface and he swam below

In elegant movements, swanlike and slow

Like a dance to the depths, his gills suddenly filled.

He would stay there forever; no more dragon blood would be spilled.

His royal blue scales have long ago turned black

The ridges now soft along his once strong back

Mankind now thinks of Chimère Drako on rare occasions

When tourists take shadowed pictures during their vacations

At Loch Ness to catch a glimpse of the lizard illusion

We call a monster of mad delusion.

© 2008 C. Harter Amos