Essence d'or — I Am Cecil; Hear Me Roar

                                                                                                  1,620 words

Essence d’or — I Am Cecil; Hear Me Roar

My work here is done. Or maybe it’s just beginning. Like Mary

Queen of Scots, my end might be my beginning. Certainly, my end looks like the beginning of something, perhaps a new kind of awareness, a new kind of kindness, a peaceful dawn over Zimbabwe to alight the world. 

We can hope, or we all perish. Perhaps not by bow and arrow and

gun and sword. That was my trophied fate, not karma’s choice. But extinction looms, just the same. That is one of my lessons: the one. We are it, together, one woven fabric, a cambric shirt, a lion’s mane.

This is our time. We need to get it right. This is my tale. I am 

forever Cecil.

Hear me roar.

Okay, I’m That lion. I can’ take it back or escape my African plain reality. 

Death may define my life, like some unjust mass-murder victim. I am the He. Not by my design, certainly. I’d rather be alive, enjoying the emulation of the crowds who come to gaze upon me in the park, my crowning dark black mane, distinguishing my golden muscled body, the adoration of my cubs, the lion-lazy days, the occasional fine meal, the mellowness of lionhood, in all its untamed splendor and glory. Golden. And people of

all stripes, walks of life, are tempted by that gold. They came to see, observe, osmose, absorb, but others to conquer, in praise of themselves. Thewant to have it, hoard it, in the worst way. In the best, visitors are satisfied in the mind by a picture-memory, an extraordinary meeting of minds, souls, under the African sun. To have seen me in person, doing what I do, is more than enough to enrich the lifetime of a normal being. To hear me roar, to know that I lived, enjoyed my days, graced the earth, is a gift for most. Now, a stolen, irreplaceable gift for all. But you get what you get here on this earth. I am bigger than my death, particularly, the way I died. I hope that’s what’s remembered, my sky-bigness, openness. And I’m bigger than those who killed me, those creatures of closed vistas, fenced-in faces, nowhere-to-gos. Nowhere men, tied up in crossbows.

The difference between us and them — you just want to live. For itself. Life. The joy. The splendor. The bright lightness of being a lion. The lifeness.

That’s what it’s about, golden light. Experience, to live, to savor, to know, to roll and stretch in the hours. Each species has that possibility built in. It came with us on the ark, cubit by cubit, pair by pair. Carefully created and cultivated through the generations ashore. And each species has its haters and killers, predators that want to wipe it off the face of the earth.

None is more successful, self-assured, or more gluttonous and dedicated and persistent in that global goal than man, bent on our destruction, ultimately his. All the wrong things are in his care, and he cares for all the wrong things, in all the wrong ways. We’re not sure where those genes came from, but it would be nice if they could be returned, defective.

We belong to us, not to him, ever, no matter what he tries.

That’s why he has to keep trying. Yet we are all in this together, and one missing link weakens the whole chain of life, makes it uglier, more industrialized, easier to crumble, and

weaponized. We know why artists celebrate the wild, and why folks raise their glasses, saluting “life.” Life has To Be. Couldn’t I have been Let Be? I was good. Wasn’t I?

I always thought I was the king. Coulda been Cecil B. DeMille,

but I was actually named after Cecil Rhodes, the de Beers magnate and prime minister of Rhodesia (precursor of Zimbabwe). I told you gold figured in there. Gold is a thread woven through mantime. Men are mesmerized by the sight, sound, smell, the very thought of its mere existence, in any form. To be golden is to be not safe. So I woulda thought.

It ain’t easy bein’ king. Just ask Elvis. I’ve had my share of rough-and-tumble days, trying to establish my pride when I first came to this wildlife park, some say as an orphan, with something to prove and an unforgettable mane. I would raise anybody’s child

now; many of us in the wild feel that kinship, even with those of the human species. Dolphins are always saving humans. Throughout history, there is lore of wolves raising human children — Romulus and Remus. Why is all that forgotten now, in the din of helicopter gunships after the wolves, poachers sparing no child elephants, and hunters with “meanus” envy. Why is payback always death for us?

I always thought I was the king. (I do a mean Elvis, even though I’ve left the building.) Hear me roar, hounddog and wise men. And that animals were next to God.

Now, of course, I am. At the right hand of the big man, in his heart. And does He have a fine mane! But what is justice? What is peace? What is joy? What is shared experience? What is goodness and what is evil? What is life and being alive? What is true beauty? What is the nature of nurture? Why are we here? To admire me on a wall?

It comes down to survival. And forgiveness. And the right thing — knowing and doing it. True heart. True courage/heart of a lion. Sometimes, things crystallize, become a moment, reduce to a moment, when things Could. A hand, a hope diamond chip, a symbol. We’d rather not. But perhaps, to save the rest....

You do for family. You just do, all across the animal spectrum. Why cannot humans get that that includes family as all life? They can’t grasp that simple fact. But they grasp everything else. They could be good, but they choose to lose.

Surely, that’s not what God intended. As I’m scattered among the animal angels now, I’ll see what I can do. Our best. That’s what life asks. Certainly, that’s not too much. For some folks, they have no idea, though.

While I’m an animal angel now, I’m not of the avenging sort; I am a teaching angel, perhaps a guardian angel. My mission: light. Love. Life. This is my story.

  I have not been perfect, but I tried. People from everywhere hailed the imperfections, my daily journey. I was loved. That is all, in the end. I was taken from my whole family, the world. The love reverberates. Hear me roar.

  A professional wildlife guide in Hwange park in Zimbabwe calculated that tourists staying in a nearby lodge, who had come to see and photograph me, paid collectively almost $10,000 a day. Match that, you priceful hunters, who know the bottom line, but the true

cost and absolute value of nothing. Economics, they tout. Without being able to share, or let live those who could help the economy. A killer pays a one-time fee of $45,000-$55,000 to hunt and kill the lion (chump change), with no hope of future revenue and really, no future (for the lion, especially). Duh squared! “Demise of an icon,” the papers reported.

Everyone came to see Cecil, and now tourism is down in Zimbabwe. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Although the government, feeling the heat from an immediate 900,000 online “Justice for Cecil” signatures on a petition, thought, perhaps, better of not issuing hunting permits for endangered species (Duh googleplexed! How endangered do you have to be?), and one local official was quoted as saying, “Lion? What lion?”

You can’t hide those lyin’ eyes, as the Eagles sang.

There are an estimated 25,000-30,000 of us in Africa. How many

of you are there in a small town, not to mention an entire continent? How many of you actually bring joy to your surroundings, create an atmosphere of kingly domain? Who comes to photograph you?

So many times we hear “It’s just a lion” (wolf, elephant, dolphin, dog or cat or name your critter). That used to be said of your own housewives. Nobody dares now; people know better, if they want to continue to eat and live. It takes time. But why is this phrase never used — “Just a hunter.” Or "just a billionaire." Humans measure things all wrong; and when the things become all measured out, gone, they wonder why. Where’s the math? Where’s

the genius? Where’s the justice?

 They don’t understand the absolute finiteness of nature, the uniqueness, what it means to really say goodbye. What it takes to make a lion, a wolf, an elephant. We are flesh and blood. We are family.

Imagine the movie line: “No lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!”

Artist Andrei Voznesensky said: “We have to change our brains. That’s why 

I’m so for art, because art will give us a new kind of thinking.”

We have lessons for each other. What will yours be? Life? Extinction? Deathly cruelty? Head on a wall? Head in the sand? Greed or heed?

I look way better in the wild than as a wall doo-dad for some

manhood-mirror. I gave you this chance, this gift. Your head is not on my wall. You did what you did; own it; make it better.

I will always be a lion. My legacy remains. True. Courageous.

Golden.

Hear us roar.

While it’s too late to hear me roar, can I get a meow for all those

helpless, hunted, orphaned cubs out there? All it took was two on the ark. And a belief in a big roar. And life.

 Now that’s the cat’s meow.

#