High up in Cepheus dwells what is known
colloquially as Elephant Trunk,
itself not the whole, but simply a hunk
that's part of a vaster nebula's zone.
The gas and dust globule threads into frame
of characteristic elephant head
along with proboscis in cloudy spread
which renders its pachyderm claim to fame.
Majestic in bearing, immense in size,
these eminent creatures never forget
‘tis said, a tall tale in essence, and yet
with lofty IQ, they're esteemed as wise.
Of matriarch head in their social core,
an elephant feels what a person might.
Astute Aristotle with depth of sight
described them as having a greater store
than other land faunae of wit and mind
as evidenced in their natural ways
of conduct communal worthy of praise,
still often ill-treated by humankind.
They trumpet their feelings in well-known cry
with range of emotions that people bare,
like grief, joy, or trait to be self-aware,
plus altruism in such short supply
on earth— but back to the jumbo aloft
far off in celestial savanna spied,
it's claimed protostars in the tendrils hide
within the embedded cloud billows soft
which start off first phase of stars to appear.
About two thousand light-years from where we're
abiding is seen that animal's sphere,
analogous to its lookalike here.
To cite Albert Schweitzer by paraphrase,
in setting where pachyderms took the helm
an ‘iron door yielded' to inner realm
through grand revelation like blinding blaze
whence reverence played on the center stage
thus opening path in the thicket's strife
to visible course for affirming life
and nature's world in epiphany sage.
We sojourn on motherly planet blue
adrift in an ever unfathomed deep
that's peerless as yet in the cosmic sweep
of reachable space environs in view.
Through ongoing flurry of mortal flux
to be and to be is our being's quest
while sensory grasp is put to the test
with ethical posture a vital crux.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem