From the Nights: Samantha Toh, “Ivory”

Savanna heat,

Brutal heat.

Even the fly, its juicy body

Is tamed by stupor.

It rests, untwitching

On the dried out carcass

As baobab chimneys huff their last.

In the orange sand,

In the blue oasis,

The elephants play

Blow an arc to the pond

As the downstream bends of a river

Wends back to the arms

Of its mother sea.

How they found the only dot

From which our civilizations

Rose and spread,

One cannot know.

Their feet alone decode the seasons.

They live their wisdom,

Dance until the day is livid.

Their compass needle, spinning, inks

The wrinkles in their hide.

(ii)

Paint the elephant

Call it god

Seek its blessing

For everything

Feed the elephant

Behind its bars

From which spectators

Gawk and sing

Shoot the elephant

That tramples the field

In fright its trample is

Unforgiving.

Kill the elephants.

Take their tusks.

Build the temple, the

Curving wind

Of step over step.

We must ascend

on the bodies of the wise.

It’s with their bones the bell will ring

To sign how men

Of this teetering tower

Are great and staunch,

Not teetering.

(iii)

Come, Babel.

Come, fire.

Last of the wood burns.

Last of the roots.

Now we turn back

To the time of raw meat.

Last of the animals.

Last of the suppers.

And then, in hunger,

One kills one’s own father. One

Drowns oneself in the blue oasis, before it shrinks

Beyond even such use, before

It too, is eaten

By that fire.