From Zoo to Zoo

Our journey
is from a zoo to a zoo,
and perhaps
the journey itself
is an attempt to be free.

Ignorance and knowledge,
poverty and wealth,
even the five elements
we wander through—
could these, too, be cages
we mistake for places to stay?

We touch the elephant
in the dark:
a rope, a snake,
a wall, a spear, a fan.
Each of us feels
what we can,
yet none sees the whole.
Each believes
they know the goal.

The elephant, though,
stands at ease,
untroubled by our truths,
while we argue
over what it is.

And so we journey
from cage to cage,
searching for freedom,
never quite certain
whether we seek to escape
the zoo we see
or the one
we do not.

Yet, beneath a tree,
sheltered from the heat,
we discover a freedom
we never chose—
and perhaps
never needed to seek.