Anne

The benevolence of being
And kind heartedness and sympathy
The unselfishness of caring
Of offering liberality
Old Elephants need friendship
The bull hook they know well
Anywhere there are humans
They have felt that hell

Being merciful and tolerant
Of the vagaries of man
To his malevolence
And his worst intentions
And his ugly plan

Offering some fellowship
The intimacy of light
The affection of heredity
Emotion in plain sight
The intense desire of sharing
An interlude or two
Involving understanding
Its what old elephants do

To get a soul impression
A sharing so to say
And then be met with bull hooks
And an artlessness
Away
From what was inspiration
Pitched tantalizingly
Into pure unconsciousness
Unconcerned how that might be

The hopeful and the joyful
Sensations of the thought
A blessedness prevailing
An enchantment that was caught
A sort of seventh heaven
Becomes cold comfort in a way
No friends are coming over
Its tension all the way
A misery to master
For everybody’s sake

The beauty and sublimity
The glamour and the grace
To be together in LONGLEAT
Where so many show their face

Disillusioned and remorseful
A joyless state is born
The gravity of all of this
Clearly has been torn
The tedium of loneliness
A bitter pill to take
The culture and the dignity
Of comradeship and more
And finding out the opposite
Is more likely to be sure

The ludicrous proposals
Of being there with friends
What an anticlimax
Such absurdity it sends
Such fear and consternation
Into an aching heart
A hopeless situation
Almost from the start

Their indifference really shocks me
They couldn’t care a less
They shrug it off like it is nothing
For me its so much stress
The sympathy of suggestion
The sacrifice of soul
The antipathy of arguing
That we do have a role
We need the affability
The urbanity and grace
And What is respectability
Within the human race!

To be let down and made miserable
And feel like a refugee
Unfriended god forsaken
Unwanted actually
Solitary on one’s own
To stand behind the veil
To cry my tears alone at night
And join the lonely trail

Unamiable and sullen
Unfriendly and hostile
Being persecuted
Ruining my style
Humanity had opened
Its golden gates of care
Championing the true blue gifts
That now were everywhere

But now the dust has settled
The spot lights have gone dark
Reality is my future
There will be no Elephant Park
Just a relentless loneliness
And my gratitude for now
To be appreciative of their honour
And forgive them, somehow