The Elephant Graveyard
Image: Elephant Skeleton ~ Mike Richardson
When I close my eyesI dream of deepest AfricaThe MotherlandOur ancestral homeWhere the orange sun risesOver the plantation landsAnd the hot winds blowAcross the Serengeti plains
Deep in the wildernessVultures hover over an elephant graveyardSwooping to pick at the fleshOf all that remainsTheir bones lie everywhereScattered and brokenDiscarded by thieves in their searchFor precious ivory
What happened to them I do not knowPerhaps it was starvationOr diseaseOr the lust and greed of manBut if you look closelySometimes you can still see themAnd hear their mighty trumpetsEchoing through the night
Away in the cityAmongst the towers and smogAn elephant calf sitsIn a concrete cageThe last of its kindIt sits and stares at the worldAnd remembers a timeWhen it was free
Licenced under a Creative Commons Licence
You can also listen to the poem below or at AudioBoo
[audio http://audioboo.fm/boos/70824-poem-the-elephant-graveyard.mp3]
Originally I started writing this poem for Blog Action Day but due to my health, I wasn't able to finish it in time. So I'm posting it now instead.
It was inspired by a dream I had where I was standing in a pit, surrounded by the bones of hundreds of animals. It was extremely vivid; I kept thinking about the dream for days afterwards and thought about using it in a short story before deciding on a poem instead.
Over the last decade the threat of extinction has increased dramatically for many species, particularly for elephants in Africa. It's largely due to poaching but also partially due to climate change; as droughts have worsened and their habitats have continued to be lost due to conditions and human encroachment, more elephants have had to search for food and water in new areas, where they often starve to death or are more easily targeted by poachers.
Some elephant populations have decreased by as much as two thirds in recent years and it's thought that African elephants could be extinct by 2020. Whether people believe in the science of climate change or not, it's clear that many species are becoming increasingly threatened on multiple fronts and if we do nothing, we could lose them forever.
That was what I wanted to represent in my poem. I wanted to leave the reader to decide what caused the extinction itself; I was more interested in showing what we have to lose. I hope you liked the poem. - CJ.