A dozen elephants marched through my sari border,
Of blue silk and gold thread,
Through ochre afternoons, and indigo foliage.
On gold paisleys and sequined dreams.
As I clipped on a mother-of-pearl,
A blue elephant whispered to me
"Come with us and we'll show you-
The things that are being done to us."
I climbed onto a magnificent elephant,
Wishing for a mahout and a palanquin.
We walked past gossamer fields and silken silhouettes,
Away from the world of bejeweled saris.
Brown and grey elephants were being killed-
Slaughtered and shot for their tusks;
Ivory, they said, to deck our homes with.
Gentle giants trapped in circus rings,
Beaten and bruised,
Made to perform for our pleasure.
Shackled in zoos'
Sick or dying'
More elephants uncared for.
"Show me a happy elephant," I cried.
"There is nothing as beautiful-
As a herd of free elephants,
Straggling together in mottled green forests,"
Said my sari-border elephant.
"But will there be any left-
If this is what is being done to us?"
Solemn and in deep thought,
We walked back to our tapestry fields.
"Blue elephants on my sari border!
Go back to the forests you came from."
And then, I heard the doorbell,
"That was quite a dream!" I thought.
Until, I turned to smoothen my sari border:
A strip of plain blue silk -
Not a single elephant there out of the entire lot!
