Who are you?

The blind men could never, not if they had pondered a million years, have determined it was elephant. They knew rope and tree and spear and snake. They had touched rope to their faces. Before they had lost their vision, they had climbed tree with friends. They had tasted the tip of spear on their tongues. Once when they were children, they had drawn their fingertips down the length of snake at the market, and had felt snake’s smooth, beautiful skin.

But they didn’t know elephant. Oh, they had heard stories of elephant. Elephant, they were told, was glorious. Elephant was a grand as tomorrow, and as loud as fear. With a single step, they were told, elephant might crush you like a thousand hungers.

But they did not feel glorious or grand or loud or heavy that day. They felt rope. They felt tree and spear and they felt snake. Was it their fault that they did not recognize elephant? The stories were not lies. But they did not prepare them for what they encountered that day.

Last night a friend asked, What might elephant say, if only we asked, “Who are you?”

Elephant doesn’t talk, I said. And if he did, it would not be in a language we would understand. Elephant speaks elephant.

Huh? she replied.

I tried that, I said. It didn’t work.

But how long and how quietly did you listen? Have you considered, she asked, that elephant does speak our language? But slowly, perhaps. And softly.