Tag: Rolfe

Yulin

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

When I see the dogs in Yulin,
Boiled alive, or skinned alive, or beaten to death,
The horror of it brings my lost children to mind.
There are no words to convey
On how I miss their eyes and presence.
Animals by far are the most giving
Of their time and their love.
I ask people who profess love
To show intimacy;
But their time demands more passion
And all my children needed was my time.
Their time alive was encompassed intimacy
And so dreadfully short.
I wonder why cruelty
Becomes a palate for cuisine?
Doesn’t grace justify a quick death?
Why must consciousness be alive,
When it is dunked into boiling water?
What feast can be derived from that?
I have protected dogs. I am a father.
I have nurtured dogs. I am a mother.
I have wept at their death.
I am a parent.
To say that each life is important,
That might is right is important,
That the circle of life is important,
Is true and the world exists.
But the lion doesn’t boil its prey,
The shark doesn’t skin its food.
The law has to abide.
We all must die.
But we pray for a quick death.
A silent death, as part of sleep,
Why then do we, as the sapient ones,
Deny that death in these feasts?
I cannot justify cruelty.
I will condemn torture.
I loved Bonzo, Diana, Rolfe and Zoe:
Lights in my life.
They burned so bright, I was happy blind;
But when one faced torture,
When their need overruled my own,
I bought an end to my blindness.
I was death. I was the dark.
And this is all that I ask for;
It is not in my power
To ask for any more:
Stop cruelty to those who cannot fight back,
Show mercy,
Be no greater than or lesser than
What you are:
Human.

To Rolfe – an Elegy

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

(Episode One – 16th November 2001)

I never did like you.
That I think you know.
You must have known,
When we left you in that cage:
Locked from home and things familiar.
Your mind being physically jerked.
You lying there,
Quiet in your vomit;
Lying there and looking at me,
Up at me, with your chin on the floor,
Looking with eyes that don’t see –
But speak volumes:
Liquid, soft, scared – quiet.

We are all brought here somehow,
To suffer somehow,
And survive somehow, with life or with death.
But somehow – somehow – you should be exempt from all of this.

Yet there you were –
As I left for home –
Walking haphazard,
Dry nose against clapped iron,
After three days of fast,
Three days of gut wrenches,
Three days of muted pain.
All rewarded by an indefinite exile in Howl Hole.
(We have it far easier –
At least there is someone
Waiting
Outside.)

I never did like you.
But if they would
I would be waiting outside.
That I think you know.

(Episode Two – 19th November 2001)

Fifth day.
You were quiet and weak.
They were non-committal and complacent.
We were ignorant of all
But your suffering – or were we?
I misunderstood your yells
As you lay immobile – pierced everywhere.
Fed you with trickles of water,
After a five day fast.

Five days.
What were they like to you?
And the nights?
What horror did you feel –
Alone – in a cage – sick to the bone?
My punishment is my regret.
If any consolation
(If one can call it that)
Is when you returned home:
Within mere minutes,
You were at peace.

R.I.P.

To Rolfe.

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Those round and bulging and luminous eyes!
And those ears that hung outward like a bat!
An expression of a Pug in disguise –
Mobile even before the drop of the hat!
Tawny coloured, alert and bendy-backed,
A flimsy walk and a nonchalant air,
Quite a few faults I know he did not lack,
A will that would make him pick any dare.
That was Rolfe, whom some call my second best –
E’en I used to think so up until now –
Now that he has passed the Ultimate Test:
To prove I loved him anyway and how!
Angels came and took him from us today,
I loved him – guess that’s all I wanted t’say.

20th November