elephants

( fohn.net )

I do love listening to NPR

in the morning.

Only on NPR can you have the experience

that I had today, while driving.

There was this story about elephants,

and the way they communicate.

It appears that they make a low resonant noise

when they have some kind of distress,

and that noise can be detected from very far away,

and can act as a warning to distant members of their herd

of danger.

What I got from the story

is that no one knows for sure how it is that elephants,

so far away,

can know that one of their number 

is in distress.

I propose that they feel it in their feet --

Frequencies and messages can be detected

in the natural world

by natural beings that are not crippled like us --

most animals use their entire system

to communicate.

I'm sorry to say I can't find a tape of this elephant story that I heard this morning,

strangely.

Perhaps I heard it in my feet;

but

I can find recordings of the stories that followed it,

and they were stories about the U.S. congress,

fighting over the budget.

The president thinks we should tax the wealthy more;

and the various factions in Congress

are making their usual noises,

arguing that taxing the wealthy is not the answer,

no, 

we should cut spending.

So much chatter,

like the monkeys up in the trees --

but wait --

it's an insult to monkeys to say that.

Monkeys, it appears, are quite wise.

( clever monkeys )

Our leaders keep chattering, 

but no one is listening,

not with their ears or their feet or their hands or their minds.

Everyone just chatters along with the others, 

and not one stops,

except occasionally

when someone dies.

Humans are, perhaps,

the saddest of the earth's creatures,

the most inept,

because even now,

even as

the sound of our collective distress resonates

through the earth,

no one's stopping their rushing around and chattering

to truly listen

to it.

If we would only listen,

with the mentality of the herd creature that we truly are,

well,

perhaps we'd actually find a way to help each other.

But no one is listening,

except, 

perhaps, 

for the elephants.