A Sea of Elephants

Reposting one of my favorites, from back in 2013.

Gray wave after gray wave surges out of the bush in small herds of twenty or less, first one group, now another, flooding the huge hollow that contains a waterhole.  Dust rises in the air, a potent blend of manure, dried grass and sand.  The backwash swells in our direction.  Soon a sea of elephants surrounds us.  We’re submerged in a roiling world of noise.  Snorts, grumbles, trumpets, growling bellies and gargantuan belches resound.  Some of the vibrations are too low to hear, but I feel them as they pass through my body, reverberate in my chest cavity, squeeze my heart.  Eye after eye inspects us as eddies of elephants swirl past.  An old world laps at the foot of our memories, extinguishes centuries of communal fires.  The ropes that tether us loosen.  We slip away from the familiar shore and set off towards unimaginable ways of being.  We look around with wild hearts.  We have become part of the herd.