Dialogues with Animals

"El no haber nacido animal es una de mis nostalgias secretas"

-Clarice Lispector

Dialogue with a Pachyderm

I thought I saw you in a dream last night. Your kin kept appearing like a wrinkled herd of grey loitering through my memories in the sand so beige.

You were thirsty, you were hurt, your wise eyes tears shed. You were looking for your loved ones, your trunk extended, smelling death.

Have you come for some answers, a common ground to parley? I can tell you, the age of reason has left us here, as well. My herd suffers from Bloodshed, they come with weapons, killing,

their twisted hearts filled with hate.

In a perpetual nightmare, all is hurting yet again:

Temperatures pushing a hundred degrees of violence. Humans in all languages crying out mourning their dead.

All seems suspended in egotistical spirals of self-based-webs:

Webs of crooked, webs of terror, conspiracies, and despots,

Webs of hunger and turmoil.

Forest burning, cities yelling in frustration: “it is happening once more”

There is also a bit of love, people trying, people walking filling black holes with some hope.

So if you come tonight to visit,

I'll be waiting by the stream

where we both can drink as equals.

like last night, just in a dream