ManicDDaily

When Elephants

I read a book
“when elephants weep”
about tears that look like tar, as impossible
to scrape away

about the grief
of elephants–the messages
sent through shaken
earth-

and then I put the book
on a shelf made of composite wood
and only every once in a while, would catch
the title etched grey along
black spine, maybe while fetching
my raincoat–

wanting somehow not to feel,
to cover, how our world eats
suffering–
I don’t mean meat here, or only–
cows with their kabuki faces
in spring, elephant calfs pink
as raw steaks–

but how we eat land,
trees, air–

and how so many only worry about elephants as large canaries
in this
cold mine–

Oh Christ, we think,
unable to number the species
whose paths we’ve crossed–

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another draft poem for some day in April, for the heck of it, and also for Fireblossom (Shay’s ) prompt on Real Toads about elephants. (Second of those–neither is a great poem! Agh!)  Pic is of some old bones at the American Museum of Natural History (I believe some here may be of elephants/mastodons given what looks like a bit of tusk protruding.)