Two Lions

I dreamed we adopted two lion cubs, very cute, one boy, one girl. We took them in because their previous owner could not keep them, even though our house (not really our house) was not appropriate for the raising of lion cubs. They were very frisky, particularly the old and larger one, the male. When he escaped, we thought to tempt him back with food. Not knowing what to feed a lion, we opened cans of dog food--the only thing we had available. That brought him back. Then we took them upstairs to our living room (not our living room) where we thought they would be safe and could not escape. We had neglected, however, to close several of the sliding window panes that opened straight out to the street, and I had to run from one to the next, trying to close them all before the lions escaped.

In "real life" last night, we watched the heart-breaking 60 Minutes segment about the poisoning of lions in Kenya, to keep them from killing cattle. The lion population there, it seems, as elsewhere in Africa, is dwindling terribly. It may not be long before there are no lions left in the world, aside from those in captivity. What will we tell our children and our grandchildren, when they read old story-books? That we allowed the eradication, at human hands, of this icon of beauty, power and sovereignty? Shame on us. Shame on all of our human species that we tolerate such treatment of our fellow-beings on this planet.