In the Eyes of a Killer Whale

In the Eyes of a Killer Whale

What is it that I see in your eyes?
Is it memories from days’ bygone?

Now distant and from a long time ago.

What is it that I see in your eyes?

Those beautiful shiny and glazed orbs,

Looking closely at all of us and things around you,

Plotting a secret and dark revenge,

For we trapped you,

And confined you to these glass walls,

A symbol of our perverted desires,

For we like nature,

But not when it is wild,

We like things tamed and domesticated,

And not free,

To be able to look at you,

With these barriers so that you may not harm us.

Or is it maybe,

The happiness of good-riddance,

From those long cold dark days in the open seas,

Where the food was scarce,

And life was an endless stream of near-deaths,

From personal rivalries, fishing boasts, or being trapped in ice.

What is it that I see in your eyes?

As I look at you, and you at me,

As you swim by in these huge monstrous tanks,

Which to you would be just a speck in the ocean.

Is it a wish to swim, and swim free,

And not be constrained by these glass walls,

Built for us to gape and ogle at you?

What is it that I see in your eyes?

Is it a look of gratitude,

Thanking us for our protection,

From the vagaries of the open seas,

And for the food we so dutifully provide to you every day.

I cannot say, for I do not know,

What is it that I see in your majestic eyes,

But sometimes at night,

I dream I am you,

I know I would rather swim out into the open ocean,

And face whatever life throws at me,

And swim free, and die free.

Mukund Palat Rao

(April 7, 2013)

The poem might be about killer whales but this is my opinion about all animals and fish and other living beings we have trapped in various zoos and aquariums all around the world.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of killer whales but these were a few images I found on my computer of animals in zoos and fish in aquariums.
(If you click on any of the images below you can view them on a slide show)