Inspired In each issue we ask a contemporary poet for a poem which draws inspiration from another poet’s work. Anthony Cody responds to the late Chicanx poet Francisco X Alarcón.

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Jaguar some say I'm now almost extinct in this park but the people who say this don't know that by smelling the orchids in the trees they're sensing the fragrance of my chops that by hearing the rumbling of the waterfalls they're listening to my ancestors' great roar that by observing the constellations of the night sky they're gazing at the star spots on my fur that I am and always will be the wild untamed living spirit of this jungle

Francisco X Alarcón

Jaguareté (Jaguar) from Animal Poems of the Iguazú / Animalario del Iguazú. Poems copyright © 2008 by Francisco X Alarcón. Permission arranged with Children's Book Press, an imprint of Lee & Low Books Inc., New York, NY 10016. All rights reserved.