Photo courtesy of SCMP
Six elephants, two adults, four babies,
were slaughtered by a train traveling
at high speed through a wildlife
corridor between two natural
reserves. A tragedy. No humans
injured but engine and cars
derailed, dead and injured
elephants watched over by
other members of the herd
in mourning–this reckoning
the latest in the constant crash
of human steel and elephant flesh,
human poison and elephant flesh,
numbers ever dwindling
of the great herds that forged
paths from North to South,
from Jaffna to Dondra Head.
Now, we take stock wondering
how can we stop a train racing
at ninety miles an hour
in the dark where elephants
once crossed trees, bushes
and streams, where humans
had to act like elephants,
where death machines
were not written, not even
imagined, in the natural
constitution, that governs
the blood as it travels
through the still human body.