elephants

They are grey shapes in the trees,

They are like moving rocks,

They are the wide-legged ones,

The bearers of ivory, the small-eyed,

The trumpeters, with ears like sails,

The heavy-footed.

They are the ones who reproach us

For what we have done, for taking

Their world away from them;

They are the ones in whom the dignity of great forms

Is most resolutely and finally expressed.

You cannot understand our words,

Although your brains have memories, like ours,

And you mourn your dead, as we do;

So when we ask of you your forgiveness

For our history of wanton slaughter

Of elephant kind, our words are lost,

Indecipherable, lost to your loyal heart,

Lost in the silence of your shrinking forests,

Your dwindling home.