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.

*Kumki – an elephant used to train or drive away wild elephants.

Background - increasing wild elephant raids on human habitats in Kerala State, India.