Babe

Babe and her buddy Omar, the camel

huge clump of bananas

grasped in gray trunk,

two chomps, gone.

watermelon held out,

trunk sniffs,

then wraps the fruit:

a pop!

juice dripping,

eyes rolling back in head,

and, unmistakably, a smile

of deepest pleasure.

gentle giant,

survivor of so much human cruelty,

yet you loved the ones

who gentled your final years.

May we learn from you

your gifts of generosity,

compassion and 

forgiveness.

Kids, I am reading the most wonderful book for animal-lovers: The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them,  by Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.  Shay, stop reading.

Every page tells a story of animals who have suffered the most horrible of existences at the hands of humans, who are fortunate enough to be rescued and given sanctuary at Black Beauty Ranch in Texas. 

Babe's entire family was killed when she was a baby, when her herd was "culled" in a national park by order of the South African government. You can imagine  the trauma and terror among these intelligent creatures, who have strong emotional bonds to each other. Babe was "spared", but put in shackles and sent by boat to a circus in the States. Her state of mind during transport can only be imagined. She suffered leg damage, likely from the shackles, and the subsequent performances she gave, until she grew too lame to continue. Fortunately, activists stepped in to move her to the Texas sanctuary and she has lived the intervening years in kindness and contentment, with her special friend, Omar, the Camel.


Update: I just checked online and read that Omar died a few years ago, and that Babe was being readied to be moved to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, where she will live with other elephants. I hope that all goes well.

I can hardly bear to read these stories. The author delves into factory "farming", medical research labs, and the most horrendous abuses. How humans can treat other beings, both animal and human, the way they do is beyond me.  I tell myself if the animals can endure the suffering, I can bear witness. I also remind myself of all the people who try to bring both action and redemption to these horror stories, by counteracting darkness with light. That's the one good thing I take away from these stories. But millions of animals never find  deliverance from their lives of pain. Those are the stories that haunt me.