The Voice Of A Tiger

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” — Kahlil Gibran

Memories of a Vibrant Canopy

The forest used to wake me before the sun did. Long before the first rays touched the treetops, the air would already be alive. Birds called to one another from hidden branches. Insects hummed beneath wet leaves. Somewhere in the distance, monkeys argued over fruit they had not yet eaten. The river sang as it slipped over smooth stones, and a cool mist lingered between the trees.

The forest was never truly silent. I grew up surrounded by those sounds. They were as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.

My mother knew every corner of this place. When I was a cub, she led me through narrow paths hidden beneath ferns and towering bamboo. She showed me where deer gathered , where peacocks nested, and where the sweetest water could be found during the hottest months.

I remember the first time she brought me to the river.

I was so small that my paws sank into the soft mud. Dragonflies flew across the water’s surface. Fish flashed silver beneath the sunlight. The river stretched wide and clear, carrying life to everything around it.

Back then, everything seemed certain. The rains came when they were supposed to and the rivers flowed year-round. The forest provided enough for every creature living within it. I thought it would always be that way.

I was wrong.

The Disappearing Waters

The first change was so small that I almost ignored it.

One summer, the river became shallower than usual.

The next year, it shrank even more.

Then one year, I arrived at my favorite watering hole and found only cracked earth.

The mud beneath my paws had split into hundreds of jagged lines. Tiny fish lay stranded in puddles too small to save them. The air smelled of dust instead of water.

I stood there for a long time, confused.

Rivers were not supposed to disappear right? Not just like that!

I returned again the next day, hoping I had somehow mistaken the place, but the river was still gone, and for the first time, the forest felt capable of forgetting itself. It made no noise, just utter silence.

A Changing Climate and Struggle for Survival

As the years passed, the heat grew worse.

Summer no longer felt like a season. It felt like a punishment.

The sun hung over the forest for hours, baking the ground until even the shade offered little relief. My tongue hung from my mouth as I walked. Every breath felt heavy. Sometimes I lay beneath trees simply waiting for the day to end.

Even the wind felt tired.

The older animals noticed it too. The deer became thinner each season, their ribs visible beneath their hides. Birds that once arrived with perfect regularity appeared weeks late or did not appear at all. Even the elephants wandered farther than before, searching for water that seemed to retreat from them year after year.

Something was changing, but we never understood what.

The rains changed next. When I was young, storms announced themselves gently. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon. The scent of rain drifted through the trees. Then came the first cool drops, followed by hours of steady rainfall that soaked the forest and filled the rivers once more.

Now weeks pass without rain, leaves curl and fall and the ground becomes more brittle.

Then suddenly the clouds burst.

Rain crashes down so hard that streams overflow within hours. Water tears through the forest, washing away soil and uprooting young plants before disappearing just as quickly as it came.

The forest never seems to receive exactly what it needs.

The Death of the Ancient Fig Tree

I remember a giant fig tree that stood near the center of my territory. It was older than I was, and all the other tigers of the forest. When I was a cub, I used to rest beneath its shade while my mother hunted nearby. Hundreds of animals depended on it. Birds nested in its branches. Monkeys fed on its fruit. During the hottest months, it offered shelter to everything beneath it. One year, after a particularly harsh season, I returned to find it dead.

The great tree that had stood for generations had simply given up.

I circled it several times, unable to understand. The forest felt smaller without it. Now, when I walk through my territory, I notice empty spaces everywhere. Places where water once flowed. Places where trees once stood. Places where animals once gathered.

The forest is still here, but it feels as though pieces of it are quietly disappearing, one by one. The young cubs born today will never know what this place once looked like.

A Plea for the Future

The young cubs born today will never know what this place once looked like. They will never hear the songs of birds that no longer visit, never see rivers running full through the dry season, and never rest beneath the shade of the old fig tree. To them, this changing forest will seem normal. That thought saddens me more than anything else, because I remember.

I remember cool mornings wrapped in mist and endless green stretching beyond the horizon. I remember rivers that never ran dry, forests so alive that every corner seemed to sing with life, and seasons that arrived exactly when they were meant to. I remember a world that felt eternal. Now, each year feels hotter than the last. Each river seems shallower. Each silence feels longer. I do not know the words humans use to describe what is happening. I am only a tiger. I cannot read your books or attend your meetings. I only know what I see: the forest is thirsty, the seasons are confused, the animals are struggling, and the home that raised me is changing before my eyes.

Tonight, I sit beside the skeleton of the old fig tree. The moon hangs above the forest, casting pale light across the clearing where life once flourished. Somewhere in the darkness, a young cub lets out a playful roar. He has never seen the river as I knew it. He has never walked beneath the fig tree’s shade. He has never heard the forest at its fullest. I close my eyes and listen to the silence, then try to remember those sounds for both of us.

Because someone must. please save my forest.