THE ELEPHANT OUTSIDE THE LIVING ROOM

Good morning good ones.  Thinking about the recent giraffe killing in a zoo that protects wildlife, I'm  pondering how animals are abused, even as they are diminishing and becoming extinct in nature by toxic chemicals and radioactive nuclear wars and reactors–endless testing and weather changing climate warfare even confusing the flight migrations of birds. Man's greed for imperial control and ivory consumes his very soul.

So here is my poem about elephants.

Mame

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Helene Smith

www.macdonaldsward.com

 “Three things in the world are ever present–the moon, the sun and truth.”–Buddha

THE ELEPHANT OUTSIDE THE LIVING ROOM

Noble beast of burden with intelligence forevermore,

Herbivorous, not even eating animal crackers galore,

Indian Ocean watch-guards of volcanic ash roar,

Eruptive earthquakes, Indonesia ­in 2004.

Shackles break–great strength in escaping all around,

Tossing humans with their trunks to higher ground.

Just as the sea rolled up the mountain, to beat

The tsunami, stopping before engulfing their feet.

Highly born pachyderm, with dermis so dense,

Aged beauty in inch-thick skin, in any sense.

But seldom is perceived how they suffer,

With tender skin prodded onward like a prisoner.

Imbued in nature they know so much

While healing wounds with mud and clay.

Those whose stomachs ache from cold,  

As they welcome prevailing trade winds, so bold.

O largest land-locked mammal the ancients told,

Like modern dinosaurs, war-torn and old,

Only survivors, the Proboscides, they say,

Prehistoric mammals, faithfully obey.

Wisely the leader of the herd a female,

Strides in milk and honey, a voice to every male.

Elephants, same in breadth as high, overland

Swings its nose, longer than Pinocchio, like a hand.

With largest world ears–some four feet wide;

Like poi along the South Pacific tide,

Also have Earth’s largest teeth, eating bails of hay

Like in a circus, wishing they could swim away.

Hannibal, great general of ancient Carthage.

Crossed the Alps and invaded Italy in outage.

With elephants carrying soldiers on their backs,

Tusks armed with swords for savage warrior attacks.

Patterns of justice for all the World to see,

So that man shall not forget all his gore,

The ploy of aggression that devastates each sea.

Elephants have good memories, no dumbos, you see.

Human infants so helpless cry,

As baby elephants mourn their mothers who die,

Those helping the needy and forlorn,

Deserve honors for protecting their own.