Dreams Of War Among Orangutans

                             “En ces temps difficiles, il convient d'accorder notre mépris

                             avec parcimonie, tant nombreux sont les nécessiteux.”

                                                                                                  Chateaubriand

Let scientists tell in precisest terms where

reside dreams of war among Orangutans

and what kind of war it is:

Is it war to control bananas,

food of the wise, by the likes

of Great Ape United Fruit?

Is it war to monopolize the best routes

for brachiating through branches

of jungle and over the shortest airlanes

between trees to trapeze across?

Is it religious war or war to colonize and exploit?

Is it nuclear war, chemical war, economic war?

Is it a war of terror? Is it racist or genocidal?

Is it war for profit or war for the sake of war?

Is it no war at all but a still sullen nightmare

of a long-armed guerilla blowing strawberries

at under and over men logging, mining, and burning

the small green planet of just another less than human,

more than human forest kind?

E. A. Costa

E. A. Costa   October 11, 2016  Granada, Nicaragua