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