* * * * * * WINNING POEM * * * * * * 

He leapt through the forest,
Brushing past the clouds,
With eyes; blurry, teary and confused
With trembling lips, he began murmuring
To the snickering streams
And the beautiful, babbling brooks
Yet somehow they ignored him
He swiveled around and saw the soldiers,
All perspiring, panting and blood-stained
Yet they never gave up galloping,
On their thundering, pounding stallions
For they were after him
But they didn’t want the boy,
They wanted his legacy,
Woven into the lion skin, draped around his chest
He stroked the spellbinding embroidery,
Which made up a bull,
Woven by his grandmother’s needle and thread,
It still held the fragrance,
Of her sweet sandalwood
As she lay writhing in the embrace of death,
And gradually passed away,
Suddenly, from within him,
A majestic bull leapt out
With beady eyes and ivory horns,
It picked the soldiers by their collars,
And hurled them away,
And just as the boy reached out to thank it,
The bull began to fade away,
And crouching within the shadowy bushes,
Of the forest,
The boy began pondering and wondering,
How was it that within his frail old grandma’s fingers
This valiant, charging bull had thrived?
And woven into the lion cloth on his chest,
The bull smiled up at him,
His beady eyes glimmering with his dying grandma’s
Mystical Magic