Memorial Day

Memorial Day - the start of the summer season, and a day that I tend to fear

This actually has nothing to do with zoos, except insofar as it relates to animals.  I saw this poem on a Facebook post by the International Crane Foundation and very much enjoyed it, so I thought I'd share it here as well.  Too often, we associate Memorial Day simply with the three-day weekend and the cookouts and (for the zookeepers) the huge, unruly crowds which threaten to trample us and our animals to death.  This poem, I think, speaks to an aspect of the true meaning of the holiday - remembrance.

"I sometimes think that warriors brave

Who met their death in bloody fight

Were never buried in a grave

But rose as cranes with plumage white

Since then unto this very day
They pass high overhead and cry.

Is that not why we often gaze

In silence as the cranes go by?

In far-off foreign lands I see

The cranes in evening's dying glow

Fly quickly past in company,

As once on horseback they would go.

And as they fly far out of reach

I hear them calling someone's name.

Is that not why our Avar speech

Recalls the clamor of a crane?

Across the weary sky they race

Who friend and kinsman used to be,

And in their ranks I see a space -

Perhaps they're keeping it for me?

One day I will join the flock of cranes,

With them I shall go winging by,

And you who here on earth remain

Will listen to my strident cry."

- Rasul Gamzatov