So the elephants march... (reflection)
A curious fact about elephants is this:In order to survive, they mustn't fall down.Every other animal can stumble and get backup again. But an elephant always stands up,even to sleep. If one of the herd slips and falls,it is helpless. It lies on its side, a prisoner of itsown weight. Although the other elephants willpress close around it in distress and try to lift itup again, there isn't usually much they can do.With slow heaving breaths, the fallen elephantdies. The others stand vigil, then slowly move on.
This is what I learned from nature books, butI wonder if they are right. Isn't there anotherreason why elephants can't fall down? Perhapsthey have decided not to. Not to fall down istheir mission. As the wisest and most patientof the animals, they made a pact.
I imagine it was eons ago, when the ice ageswere ending. Moving in great herds across theface of the earth, the elephants first spied tinymen prowling the tall grasses with their flint spears."What fear and anger this creature has," theelephants thought. "But he is going to inheritthe earth. We are wise enough to see that.Let us set an example for him."
Then the elephants put their grizzled heads together andpondered. What kind of example could they show to man?They could show him that their power was much greaterthat his, for that was certainly true. They could displaytheir anger before him, which was terrible enough touproot whole forests. Or they could lord it over manthrough fear, trampling his fields and crushing his huts.In moments of great frustration, wild elephants will do allof these things, but as a group, putting their heads together,they decided that man would learn best from a kindermessage. "Let us show him our reverence for life," they said.
And from that day on, elephants have been silent, patient,peaceful creatures. They let men ride them and harnessthem like slaves. They permit children to laugh at theirtricks in the circus, exiled from the great African plainswhere they once lived as lords. But the elephants' mostimportant message is in their movement. For they knowthat to live is to move. Dawn after dawn, age after age,the herds march on, one great mass of life that never fallsdown, an unstoppable force of peace. Innocent animals,they do not suspect that after all this time, they will fallfrom a bullet by the thousands. They will lie in the dust,mutilated by our shameless greed.
The great males fall first, so that their tusks can be madeinto trinkets. Then the females fall, so that men may havetrophies. The babies run screaming from the smell of theirown mothers' blood, but it does them no good to runfrom the guns. Silently, with no one to nurse them, theywill die, too, and all their bones bleach in the sun. In themidst of so much death, the elephants could just give up.All they have to do is drop to the ground. That is enough.They don't need a bullet: Nature has given them the dignityto lie down and find their rest. But they remember theirancient pact and their pledge to us, which is sacred.
So the elephants march on, and every tread beats outwords in the dust: "Watch, learn, love. Watch, learn, love." Can you hear them? One day in shame, the ghosts of tenthousand lords of the plains will say, "We do not hate you.Don't you see at last? We were willing to fall, so that you,dear small ones, will never fall again."