An Enormous Elephant

An elephant in Africa; Kruger National Park or Knysna,
is enormous, imposing, majestic - worthy of protection –
the only rational behaviour of the tourist is to back away

When we were small and my uncle slowly advanced on
the elephants while my aunt shrieked in fear, we simply
cheered, quite oblivious to the danger posed by these
soft-footed beasts; we thought being near elephants
was plain fun –

Last time we were in the Kruger National Park, we played
with a white rhino, every time he tried to cross the road
we reversed or accelerated in order to block his path,
the rhino finally looked very menacing and we drove
away;

One day we parked to watch the elephants at
a water hole, suddenly the kids screamed – an
enormous matriarch was bearing down on us
from behind…

“Those were the days, my friend,
we thought they’d never end…”