The Fellowship of the Sentients

Part 1. It's Personal

I shed a tear

At the sight of this pic

Two in fact

The love of my life beside me

Shared it too

What was the anatomy

Of this emotive response?

One tear was for the sentient

Reaching out the hand of help

To a fellow

The fellowship of the sentients

The other eye's tear

The shame I feel for these noble beings

From human ignoble acts

Tear one returns

What a beautiful thing

This selfless act, recognisable to humans

This concern enacted, instinctive

We do this too

We see a fellow in some kind of peril

We don't stand back, come forward

Hands outstretched, lending

Pull them back in, rescue as needed

We do it compelled by connection

Ties of empathy bound into a rope

Pull them out of danger

Retrieve them from harm's way

Indeed, not just for other humans

We don't withhold from animals either

When imperilled

So many videos attest

Humans as #therescuers

A good fit

Tear two returns

The cloud descends, enshrouds

Obscures, hides the truth

A bad history of harm

Killing and exploitation

Orangutans in their own home

Still relatively minor skirmishes

Compared to the clear-felling for oil

The oil of the Palm, most effective threat

Evicting them from their home forests

And if they then encroach back, conflict

How many helping hands diminished

Turned instead into hands reaching out

For help, for release from a cage

From a chain around the neck

Imprisoned ‘pet’, even if illegal

From this existential crisis

This is the critical juncture

Instead extend our hands to help

Be a part of #therescuers

Just in time to return the favour

Which is the stronger emotion

Which tear will prevail

Which is the tale

We will tell to our descendants

Which is the favour

To her descendants

In kind returned acts

This story is in first person

It’s personal

What can one person do

To ensure, even remotely

The Fellowship of the Sentients

Is spread far and wide

Promulgated

Part 2. A Gesture to Remember - A Capture to Applaud

A hand

We understand

Extended in concern

A gesture, a reaching out

A triumph

A spirit, a human-like spirit

Extended beyond our own

A tragedy, in original Greek

Indeed brought on ourselves

Perpetrated on another

For their loss and ours

Ultimately, the pice is paid by all

She watched, concerned

Saw the man in deep water, snake-infested

Though that's what we was there for

To clear these hazards

She couldn’t know

She surveyed him as he surveyed

Then, seeming stuck in the mud

She ambled into action

Sat down on the edge

Compelled, as we initially comprehend

Though some might ascribe different intent

Reached out her hand

Across the species divide

Only in our mind

Her extended hand rejected

The gulf still wild

Syrhul (he) explained, comprehensibly

For reasons of protocol

We will never know, but can surmise

Why Anil (she) stretched out her hand

To someone known, seemingly in trouble

Fate that wanted to be recorded, intervened…

A moment

Come and gone

A memory for one or two

And one not the same

Would have been lost

But for the photographer's art

Sense of importance and timing

Light needed just right, in position

A capture

An instant

An incident

Of such import

For all time recorded, digitised

A marvel, a wonder

A tear-jerking image, dicotomatic

One for celebrating

One for conscience cleansing

A memory etched

A vision stretched

For all time

A lesson, a reminder

Relegate the past

Time to be kinder

Launch remedial action

While the two tears flow

A conscience pricked

A consciousness elevated

A distance erased

A gulf bridged

A mind amazed

A sentience shared

A recognition

A fellowship

Photo by @Anil T. Prabhakar

From his 2020 article: ‘The Guard kept searching for snakes and cleaning the river banks, though he seemed to struggle moving his legs on the muddy floor of the river, as far as I could perceive. He kept trying to pull out his legs and move further, and suddenly the female Orangutan who quietly remained a spectator got up and moved closer and extended one of her hands towards the Guard as if she were lending assistance to get out of the mud. This might have lasted three or four minutes. I was really amazed at this unexpected, sweet gesture from the orangutan. I managed to fix my camera and capture this heartwarming, unique moment and could get four frames of the event. Unfortunately the guard declined her kind gesture and managed to move away…’ (later explained as protocol for interactions with Orangutans)