The Project
Creation of two poems in support of the endangered Asian Elephant and the Voice for Asian Elephants Society organisation (VFAES).
The VFAES’s mission is to protect endangered Asian elephants of India by preserving corridors for wild elephants and restoring their habitats, while providing basic knowledge and tools to the people living near the forest fringes to alleviate human elephant conflict, thereby fostering peaceful coexistence between people and wild elephants. VFAES also aims to provide rehabilitation programs for captive elephants to enhance their living conditions.
‘State of Cruelty’
There is a state
Big and beautiful
Full of colour and culture
Brings people together, celebrate
Sights and sounds and scents
Explosions of colour, culture’s grandeur
So much to hear and see
Ahimsa in all its glory, right?
At the centre a pantheon
Particularly a creature
Great, not small
Plays no small part
Stands tall, imposing
Decked out in splendour
Centre of attention, honoured
Should be worshipped
Festival atmosphere
Are you feeling it right
Are you instead seeing a plight?
Can you feel it
The galling weight
Exploitation dressed as culture
A festival to celebrate life
That causes death
A cruel corollary
Get paraded in the sun
Food and water deprived
Working for the man all day
22 drop down dead in ‘21
Festival of death for some
Can you hear it
A name to bring fame
Yet shame is what it rings
Kerala by name, a state of cruelty
No matter how it is dressed up
What kind of spiritual being
Makes another sentient suffer
Elephants seen suffering all around
Majestic being slavishly paraded
Lavishly dressed, another weight carried
The Bulls emasculated
No enlightenment to be found
That’s some kind of festival, Kerala
But nothing to do with kind
Religion appropriated for profit
Not everyone gains
Not the least, the elephants
Shuttled around
Can’t you see it
Seismic Society’s corollary
The heartless irony
Religion harnessed to negate spirituality
Somehow they’ve swapped Gods for slaves
Parading Gods in Shackles
Can’t die, can’t feel pain
They fail to believe and see
We can see clearly
We now say urgently
That’s all wrong
Faith must be restored
The shackles must come off!
By Anthony E. Lovell
‘Seismic Society’
Can you feel it
Vibrations through the ground
Something big is coming
An impact tremor, seismic message
Coming through the earth itself
Make way, give them room
Prodigious forest recyclers on the move
Clear the corridor, only of humans
Leave the rest intact
Keep them connected, traversing
Genes flowing, keep the pool growing
Give way, or else
Can you hear it
Chirping that is not birds
Trumpeting, you’re in trouble!
A rumble in the jungle
A growl but not really
Ultra low frequency
Travelling miles, signaling
Keep an ear out, a rather large ear
Befitting of big hearing
Elephants are talking
What are they saying
Giants are about
Can you hear it
The Aunties bulwarking
Caring for the young
Tactile trunk tag teaming
It takes a herd to raise a calf
Each one precious, much welcomed
After gestating 22 months
Long awaited, much loved
Can you hear it
The rabble rousing
Unruly youth taunting
Ill-educated harassment
Human elephant conflict
Fields of tasty crops replaces
Once were forest homes
Who can blame the hungry
On both sides of the road
Casualty causality
Cant survive an elephant’s stomp
In anger provoked
Many haven’t, made a big mistake
Even predators other than human
Don’t find yourself
Between an elephants foot
Coming down, standing its ground
In defence, of herd and territory
Can you feel it
High voltage illegal fences
Hair stands up on end
Crackling as they kill again
Not a defibrillator to save a life
Death is a harsh deterrent
A giants heart instead jolted still
Most likely an Aunty
Or her charge
Everyone loses
When the current escapes
To the ground
Can you feel it
Through flat-footed soles
Bare feet on bare ground
Elephants can
Send and receive tremulous messages
Except those on concrete
Chained on hard stand
Cut off from the earth beneath their feet
Cut off from friendly stomping
Elephants were meant to romp and roam
Not to rock pendulum like
As they stand chained
Enduring time
Serving
Can you feel it
The earth tilting to and fro
Rocking perceptibly like a boat
As the captive elephants sway
Back and forth, monotony
Brain cruelly damaged, insanity prevails
Both insane: the captive in chains
Keeping elephants captive, too insane
A prolonged lapse of reason
An interminable lapse of hope
A permanent absence of empathy
Of compassion, of kindness
Chests devoid of hearts, these captors
Only see livelihoods, dollar signs
Ignore the signs, the elephant has gone mad
Which should make us mad, motivated
To reverse their captivity
Reverse the thinking
Release!
Can you hear it
The Voice for Asian Elephants
A Society for a society
And its kindly mahout
Who instead walks beside
Not to ride, but to guide
To freedom and sanctuary
To the recognition of sentience
On the longest journey
to #recognitionofspecies at last
Relieve the beast of its burden
It’s a sentient not a servant
Unchain!
Can you hear one name
A melodious vibration of the air
Music to their elephant ears
Fearless, tireless advocate
Documenting what we stand to lose
Keystone species - so we don’t
Five minutes of your time, in succession
Highlighting, spotlighting
Giving the 40,000 left a voice
The Voice of Asian Elephants
Watch this space
Listen!
Feel what’s coming!
Not the only big thing…
Can you hear it
Elephants and whales
And many other species
(With a poem of their own)
Climate custodians, mitigators
Hard at work
Let them do their thing
We don’t even have to pay them
Their service is free
As long as they are free to be
If not, we stand to pay
More than we thought we knew
We’ll feel that too, no doubt
COP that…
It’s going to hurt!
By Anthony E. Lovell
