Wild Elephants
Elephant caparisons none,
their enormous bodies cast black shadows.
Trunks stretch out
to pulling and plucking pleasures.
A grizzled tusker thrusts
its tusks into the mud wall of a rural shrine;
devotees drop
vacuous chants, vamoose.
People are in panic,
dash along dissimilar byways.
A young terrorist is trapped
in the tangle of mammoth legs, and trampled;
not brain, but some cruel seeds
with Afghan patent lie scattered around his skull.
An old
bulwark is bulldozed.
A coconut leaf
is flung at electric wires; fear sparks.
The herd of havoc
uproot a banana farmer’s dream’s corms.
They
forage in the toxic farms.
A rusted pesticide sprayer
is flattened under the gigantic foot.
Trumpet
splinters sleep.
*Kumkis and crackers
drive the elephants away.
They will come back,
for villages grow into woods.
Inhabitants rise
as they lose habitats.
*Kumkis are used for capturing, calming and herding wild elephants or to lead wild elephants away in conflict situations.
First published in The Literary Hatchet
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