The Elephant

from Walled Gardens

“I come from the land of Ghur.
    You may have heard
the story I’m about to tell,
    but I’ll tell you more
        than you’ve heard before.
You may have heard
    how soldiers came
and set up camp in the land of Ghur,
    all in the name
of world peace, but did you hear
    about their king
visiting his army troops,
    so full of pomp
and circumstance, riding up
    on his elephant
across our piece of the world
    to claim it as his own?

We’ve seen our share of elephants
    in the land of Ghur,
but this great beast,
    like none we’ve ever seen before,
stood battle ready,
    armored head to toe and armed
with long hollow weaponry,
    all set to blow
our world apart,
    and on its heavy limbs it rose
above us like
    an ancient tower in the sky.

“I never saw this for myself
    but I believe
what I’ve been told by several
    first-hand witnesses
who travel through the land of Ghur
    and testify
to all they’ve come to know. ‘That armor,’
    says the first,
‘seemed like a carpet stretched across
    the desert floor.’
‘That weapon,’ says the next,
    ‘loomed like a Howitzer,
its heavy barrel sweeping o’er
    the poppy fields.’
  ‘That tower,’ says the third,
    ‘casts shadows on us all.’

“There may be truth in everything
    that’s ever said,
and wisdom at the core of every
    argument,
but in the end we’ll never see
    the elephant
for what it is; we’re ignorant and blind,
    and when
the war begins we fight against ourselves,
    and when
it’s over we are all that’s left behind.”