Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Film
    • Podcasts
    • Makar – National Poet
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • FAQs
    • Find us
    • Contact us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Edwin Morgan
  • >
  • Hyena
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Hyena

Edwin Morgan

I am waiting for you.
I have been travelling all morning through the bush
and not eaten.
I am lying at the edge of the bush
on a dusty path that leads from the burnt-out kraal.
I am panting, it is midday, I found no water-hole.
I am very fierce without food and although my eyes
are screwed to slits against the sun
you must believe I am prepared to spring.

What do you think of me?
I have a rough coat like Africa.
I am crafty with dark spots
like the bush-tufted plains of Africa.
I sprawl as a shaggy bundle of gathered energy
like Africa sprawling in its waters.
I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger.
I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead.

Do you like my song?
When the moon pours hard and cold on the veldt
I sing, and I am the slave of darkness.
Over the stone walls and the mud walls and the ruined places
and the owls, the moonlight falls.
I sniff a broken drum. I bristle. My pelt is silver.
I howl my song to the moon – up it goes.
Would you meet me there in the waste places?

It is said I am a good match
for a dead lion. I put my muzzle
at his golden flanks, and tear. He
is my golden supper, but my tastes are easy.
I have a crowd of fangs, and I use them.
Oh and my tongue – do you like me
when it comes lolling out over my jaw
very long, and I am laughing?
I am not laughing.
But I am not snarling either, only
panting in the sun, showing you
what I grip
carrion with.

I am waiting
for the foot to slide,
for the heart to seize,
for the leaping sinews to go slack,
for the fight to the death to be fought to the death,
for a glazing eye and the rumour of blood.
I am crouching in my dry shadows
till you are ready for me.
My place is to pick you clean
and leave your bones to the wind.


Edwin Morgan

From From Glasgow to Saturn (Carcanet, 1973)
Also published in Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Carcanet Press.

Listen to a recording of this poem on the Poetry Archive

Tags:

Africa anthropomorphism hunting jungle preditors wildlife
Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Edwin Morgan1920 - 2010

Morgan was Glasgow's first Poet Laureate 1999-2002, and the first to hold the post of Scots Makar, created by the Scottish Executive in 2004 to recognise the achievement of Scottish poets throughout the centuries.
More about Edwin Morgan

Join

Become a Borrower or support our work by becoming a Friend of SPL.
Join us

Newsletter

Sign up for our regular email newsletter.
Subscribe now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library