What separates their grief from ours?
Research shows that elephants grieve
They have been seen to stand vigil
Quiet
Quiet wailing
Into the night
They cry for them
Research shows that elephants touch
the bones, Rolling them softly with their trunk
They shuffle around carefully, moving the dead relic
Gently
Gently caressing
Gently forgiving
Gently saying goodbye
Research shows that we have rituals too
We have our prayers, our headstones and urns
Research seems to suggest that closure is healthy
Forgetting
Softly forgetting
Releasing their memory
Into the endless, endless night
Research says that grieving after 6 months is
pathological, that we need to let go but field research
says that they remember; the elephants. They don’t move on
Remembering
Forever keeping
Forever holding that
Memory, forever, forever, forever
Research says that they are animals. We move on.
We must move on. We are not the elephants. We bury our
dead. Research says they bury their dead. We are not like them.
Covering
Covering them
With dirt and leaves
But returning and returning
Research says people don't visit as much.
We do not return, again and again, we only
Seem to do so on holidays, when we ‘should’
Grieving
Grieving in a way
In a way that is expected
In a way that is unnatural
Research says we forget. We should forget
Research says elephants don’t
Research says we have been burying them wrong
We
Have
Been
Burying
Us
Wrong
(NaPoWriMo day 9! <3)
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