Gleaming tusks the color of melting snow carry
            centuries of life in Africa into shadows cast by acacia trees
at the foot of Kilimanjaro. Wrinkles sag, their grayness wraithlike
in twilight. Footpads sensitive to the rumble of time swish
through brown elephant grass; gigantic ears, swaying, shadow yellow eyes.

Their matriarch leads them through the stench of gangrenous
warming—the glaciers, the snows.

Gleaming tusks the color of melting snow carry
            centuries of life in Africa into shadows cast by a wasteland
pitting sacred life
against a machine
that does not care.