Elephant's Graveyard III
Sanctified by elephants since time began-
elephants who accept their end uncomplainingly
with relief and nary a snivel
having long ago made it a point to live their lives well
and confident of this just repose.
'Oh, my God, ' you think, 'all the ivory.'
Ivory laying about, half-sunk, everywhere
strewn, grass-entangled, trip-you-up ivory,
because that's what's left of an elephant, after a bit-
after a century or so, that's quite all that's left,
a tusk of ivory bearing in this respect
a sharp resemblance to a man's poetic toil
or the opera-ticket stub found in his breast pocket
by his grand-child, rummaging in the attic
a century after the time when the music stopped
and stopped forever, never to again resume;
toppled stalagmites of ivory, some taller than a man,
cracked by the sun, washed by the rain, buffed by the moon.
Surely, someone would buy all that ivory for market
dice to make, dominoes, piano keys, dentures;
But how to get it home-would Swiss-Air take it?
stowed in sheaths...
poem by Morgan Michaels
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
No comments until now.