DREAMING IN GREEN (G is for Giraffe)

 

What are these walls and floors

where nothing grows?

What are these fences wrapped around us

keeping us from each other,

one on one,

when my Mama wants

to teach me how to run?

My Mama tells me stories of the savannah:

grasslands, where all my cousins run and play,

tall trees to nibble on,

an open sky...

Why are we not there, too?

I wonder why.

I love my Mama, and I love the sky,

but I need trees and grasses,

freedom I have never 

felt or seen,

no fences, lots of grass,

and so, when I dream,

in my wooden stall

at night,

my dreams are green.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the gold standard for assessing endangerment, has found that giraffes are “vulnerable,” meaning they face a “high risk” of extinction in the wild. And for some of the nine subspecies, this risk is imminent. As of 2020, there were at least 579 captive giraffe at 103 zoos throughout North America and more than 800 in European zoos. Their lives are lengthened slightly by incarceration, but I am pretty sure they would prefer to run free on the savannah.

for Rajani's climate crisis series.   All the wild ones are feeling the impact of accelerating climate change.