The elephants lament

Just because I am massive
The biggest soul around
Man un kind displays
His wretched character I have found

Abuses me and uses me
To log the forest bare
Tear the life out of the place
Which of course is far from fair

For his decking and his paper use
I am forced to drag great logs
Through all this vile confusion
Through hillocks swamps and bogs

My Mahout is a bastard of the worst
Kind I can say
He reckons that he understands
My feelings, but each day

He hits me with his bull hook
And hurts me till I bleed
Its exhausting in the forest
And its so hard to succeed

Dragging logs to the trucking zone
Puts so much strain on me
My legs are pretty ropey now
My dream is to be free

I know i save the forest from man unkind
Who will
Obliterate all areas to have his precious
Will

And using us we minimise
the damage all about
Otherwise the forest
is destroyed without a doubt

But India and Thailand have told us
They will not use
Us and so we are re wilded
but they have few clues

Tearing up our habitat
there is no place to go
And the poachers now are everywhere
As most of you do know

Ivory is big business
China feels the need
To open up the market
so more of us do bleed

As China opens up its doors
and more of them do well
So each of them wants ivory
and therefore gives us hell

Worked to death no habitat
to speak of what to do
Wander through the sterile woods
waiting just for you

The poacher men who will slaughter us
And steal our ivory fast
Us pachyderms have had our marching orders
Life is cast

Into the darkest shadow
Every 15 minutes, we
Are being sought out and now murdered
Its not the place to be

First the mahouts now the poachers
And despite animal rights
All our days are hellish
And so are our nights

Will somebody PLEASE help us
Help us to get through
This maze of man un kind
That seem to follow us and do

Wicked horrid things to us
Their shamelessness it does
Our heads in really just because
We cannot stand the buzz

The chain saws and the dust clouds
The tearing down of trees
Lots of other animals die
We are begging you now please

Stop this awful carnage
Our place was once the dream
And now it is the nightmare
Much worse than it does seem

Destruction that is normal now
Death comes, to one and all
The oxygen of the planet
Seemingly does fall

Fires rage every which way
So many souls have died
The medicines of the forest
For some reason denied

No guilt this criminality
And culpability
Is certainly out of control
What will become of me

Once we had no enemies
We were free to range the wild
Now we are lost forever
Trampled and defiled

What we need is sanctuary
Perhaps born free might come
Might help us find a heaven
Somewhere there must be some

Sanctuaries a place to rest
Make friends and try to see
That elephants are settled
And an end to ivory

Poaching wouldn’t that be great
Born free our chosen place
Teresa Romano animal activist
A women of such grace

Fighting every corner
So one day may be we
Can be kind of looked after
In a BORN free sanctuary

Because we remember Elsa
And Virginia and Bill
And the pedigree is fabulous
And we know, it is still

I want to thank my lovely friend Claudia Ferri
For helping me last night with the presentation at the Born Free celebration fund raising at Teresa Romano’s event by going out screen photoing
the text to allow me to read it from notes on my i pad

And for her care and attention in getting me there and home again

And for Teresa and all her family and friends who made this event memorable for me and all who went

A truly wonderful evening
Was had by all