Slave Ape

When the rising moon calls to his soul

      he cannot answer,

he cannot follow Her shadow’s path weaving through the magic of twilit trees

   as She glides so lightly through the sky,

perhaps he catches a glimpse of Her against the smog and city pollution

     through a dirty window as Night slowly creeps by

He is trapped in this cage until his keeper comes tomorrow,

when he is wheeled out for his part in the show,

      degraded to being dressed as a human and playing drums,

and the idiot crowd laughs and thinks this is good,

    and that this is fun

He cannot express his urge to swing or call,

and instead of tree bark he has cold steel,

    he cannot feel the gentle breeze rocking him to sleep in a branch,

just the city’s noisy stories makes up the sadness of his real

  

His very nature eats away at him,

    because you cannot trap the wind as it dances through the trees

and you cannot cage a wild creature that is meant to be free

He cannot BE his truth,

so he bashes his head against the bars in frustration,

    until that pain somehow eases something in his screaming heart

When the eagle calls so far away in his Africa - it echoes in his soul

though he cannot see it’s shadow flicker against the clouds,

   he feels it, as he feels the trees falling,

forests being felled for man’s greed,

    his heart is crying out because they are one,

and our souls are dying

because we do not want to know

    that we too are all one.

The trees are our roots and our lungs

    and he is our brother

He MUST return to his Africa - we cannot leave him there

enslaved, and one day, to die alone

so far, so very far, from home

Christine Jordaan

May 2014

Trapped

African leaders – please call for DNA testing of the #slaveapes currently in China, Armenia, amongst other countries.  And then ask CITES to invoke Article VIII to bring them home!!  

© 2017

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