Elephant's Graveyard Ii Poem by Morgan Michaels

But then, almost imperceptibly, the boulders shift,
slowly at first, then increasing speed:
here a bit, there a hit
the eye perceives. Uncannily, they march through trees,

Till what you thought a wall of mere marl
proves an elephant's crinkled back-to be;
what you thought an un-tenanted grotte,
pretty enough, if bare,
is really the dark between an elephant's thighs-
between it's belly and the grass,

and you realize you have discovered a plot
piped by motherly trunks into pachyderm ears
assuring them there's a place they will go
if steadfast, in spite of crocodiles and bogs-
though one must be mindful to avoid both.

And suddenly, in the quiet of a grove
generations on generations of elephantine shapes
move, undismayed through a quiet, silencing event:
Silence flung out in billows like the sails of a ship
Quiet where a twig-snap sounds like a mine exploding