Literary Crumbs: Poems & Short Stories to Savor by D. Ryan Lafferty

By D. Ryan Lafferty

I remember, as a boy, seeing an elephant at the circus. This was not one of those large specimens draped in tapestry, standing on the shoulders of other goliaths, but somewhat smaller; a medium-sized pachyderm if there is such a thing. This one, my little giant friend, was a kiddie ride of sorts. For ten dollars a child was able to sit atop his broad back and pretend to steer the creature while a raggedy man guided them both by leash. My brother and I had the rare choice between him or one spiteful looking camel. My brother chose the camel, but I took the elephant.

While the ornery camel stomped away with my brother bouncing upon his sagging haunch, the beast brayed and hissed at the bratty rugrats taunting him beside the lane. I waited with the gathered families in line for my turn. I watched with eyes that drink in everything from this world, the poor elephant slowly walking in circles; tied to a stake in the ground. The matted earth at his wide feet was trammeled from constant use; a well-worn path to nowhere, familiar and unending in this too-small enclosure fashioned out of scraps of spray-painted picket fence and those temporary metal gate barriers used for crowd control. 

was frightened by the size of this gentle giant  lumbering about, for I was still very small and the world seemed a large and scary place. When it was my turn, my father lifted me on high and I noticed that the elephant’s large floppy ears were pitted with thousands of tiny scars. Entire galaxies made up of pain and cruel indifference. The swarthy man guiding him was holding a short rod with a hook on the end that reminded me of a razor-sharp beak and I put it all together in an instant. I never saw him actually strike the animal, but even at seven years old, I knew. The soulful eyes of the creature looked deep into mine and I saw his pain. It reached down further than his scars. It was his burden of shame, of carrying the whining sticky youth of his captors. The look of a young man in prison sentenced to life, if you could call it that, without parole.

I asked my father, why this massive beast didn’t just pull the skinny post out of the ground or break the chain and tear off through that shoddy fence and into the world (more out of my fear of being trampled than concern for his liberty).  He told me, “Son, an elephant never forgets.” He explained that when a baby elephant is born in captivity, the owner ties one end of a rope to his front leg and the other to a stake in the ground. The tiny elephant tries again and again to pull the seemingly immovable stake from the ground and break free, but he finds it impossible. “He tries and tries for years and then one day, he just stops trying.” I realized that as the elephant grows, the memory of past struggles, past failures kept him from trying again even though now that he is fully grown, it would take little effort to yank that twig from the ground. His chains are no longer made of metal, wood, or rope, but of doubt and resignation. 

These days, I often see others, folks just like you and me, living this way. Tied to their own personal stakes in the ground, still walking in endless circles; never realizing that they too have been more than strong enough to break free of those chains for some time. It starts with seeing the rope and the stake for what they have always been, mere obstacles standing in the way; self-made cages of our own design. A gentle reminder scars of the body and mind grow with us and as we get older, if we’re not careful, they may be just large enough to keep us walking in circles of our own.

Dr. D. Ryan Lafferty is a local Bordentown poet, writer, and the author-illustrator of children’s books. To

see more of his writing, visit http://www.dryanlafferty.com.