The scene opens on the sprawling Serengeti, after spring rains, on a high grassy plain, where, in the distance, Mount Kilimanjaro rises up like a snowy-haired Colossus. That morning, a lone photojournalist watches as two herds of elephants approach one another.
.
He could see that
one herd owned the veldt
as they plodded along on their toes
lumbering and swaying with
monumental grace…
.
Approaching one another,
(surreptitiously it seemed) both
herds remained wary of the other,
until something sparked recognition…
.
Then, old feelings of
friendship flamed-up into
a robustly unrestrained joyfulness,
as bellowing, ears flapping,
trumpeting,
and bodies rubbing,
became a seldom seen celebration…
.
Glowing with heightened emotion
the photojournalist felt as if he’d
been touched by some
ancient magic
when he noticed
the contour of their ears
resembled (in certain ways)
the shape of Africa, which furthered
a notion in him of kinship, (or so he thought)
as he impulsively gave tongue
to an ardent outburst,
in wild abandon,
for some moments, until
his tawdry expressions caught
the ears of a bull who spun around
and began a hasty approach towards him…
.
Seizing that his noisy rant
was periling the younger calves,
deep remorse gripped him -
a selfish boobing behavior of simply
being caught up in himself and not aware
of something far deeper than his own feelings…
But what difference did that make now; there was
no escape from this behemoth, and the man
began to fear that he would soon be….
.
But then,
.
he recalled the many times
(in his life) he’d been confronted
by chance, in opposition, unawares,
with circumstances well beyond
any power he had of resolving,
and all the helplessness
and fear he’d known
back then flooded
upon him,
as he mulled
how being seen,
and seeing himself,
was often diametric, and how,
when after supplicating the
Most High Creator,
that his fears
turned somehow
into a calm veneration,
(and no less today) as a voice
behind him instructed him firmly
to ‘take a knee respectfully, and know
an angry behemoth’s mercy and grace’…
.
So he did (humble himself) freely.
.
And after crying out for forgiveness,
the Elephant stopped, bellowed, sniffed,
and then gently reached out and
(for several moments) laid his
huge trunk over the man’s
shoulder, after which
he slowly drew back,
trumpeting at the sky,
with excitable fervor, as he
lumbered off to rejoin the others…
.
They have
a secret grave,
some say, where
they go to lie down,
unburden their wrinkled gray bodies,
and soar away to a place only the Creator knows…
.
That night the man dreamt
that the world was catching fire,
and that nothing he had ever known
would ever go back to what it once had been…
.
© richard lloyd cederberg
5/2024
       A NEW RACE OF HuMANS