The Tenderness of Elephants

 

Line of elephants approaching
Anthony's house in Thula Thula

They come, trunks swinging,

the matriarch, her daughters,

and their young,

swaying along the grassy veld,

ponderous steps shaking the earth.

She startles, the Old Grandmother,

when she comes to bones alongside the path:

elephant bones, the remains of her kin.

Distress, low rumbles among the herd,

swaying from side to side.

Delicately, then, their trunks

whiff along the brittle bones,

sensing, detecting, remembering.

They understand a trauma happened here.

They smell the madness of Man on the bones,
trauma upon the land.

With tenderness,
the Old One lifts a broken limb,

carries it a little way,

then brings it back and gently sets it down.

She is saying she wants the bones

to rise and follow her,

to be back in the body as once they were,

and walking free under

the arching African sky.

As she returns it to the earth,
she acknowledges

that, sadly, this cannot be.

She gathers her herd,
calls to the vulnerable little ones,

and, with a low rumble,

slowly, reverent with remembering,

full of sad thoughts,

they all move on.

In Shona, there is a ritual greeting,
when you meet:

"How are you?"

"I am well."

"I am well if you are well,
so we are both well."

Things are not well
in the land of dying elephants,

so our global spirits are not well.

for Shay's Word List. 

Writing this reminded me of the elephants of Thula Thula, who travelled a great distance upon intuiting the death of Lawrence Anthony,  who had rescued and rehabilitated the herd years before, creating a sanctuary for them in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, where they live wild, but remain protected. Anthony's son continues his work today.

Lawrence Anthony's book "The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild" tells the story of their friendship and how he fought to protect the herd from poachers. A wonderful read for those who love animals. 

The conservationist and author had died away from home but somehow, the elephants knew of his death. They showed up outside his house and stayed, reverently, for two days, to pay their respects to the one who had loved them so well.

When hearts are so connected, it does not surprise me that such things happen.  It only surprises me that so many humans do not understand the depth of the wild ones' hearts.