A Meditation upon Elephants

Elephants hold conversations
with a rumbling and a grumbling
too deep for human ears
vibrating in the bones
like bass notes of a church organ
rippling their eloquent ears
as Italians wave their hands
expressing elephantine emotion.

I think of Dumbo's mother
crooning a lullaby through the bars
rocking her baby in her trunk.
And that first lonely capture
paraded round the country
for Victorian admiration.
The Only Elephant in England.
With nobody to hear her cry.