• The Strange Sum of Things
  • Poems
  • Songs
  • Sea to Sea
  • Animagus Extinctio
  • Psalm 37 Menagerie
  • Butterfly Glory
  • Books
  • ABOUT
Menu

Jeff Reed

1141 Bont Lane
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Phone Number
Wind in the Reeds Poetry

Jeff Reed

  • The Strange Sum of Things
  • Poems
  • Songs
  • Sea to Sea
  • Animagus Extinctio
  • Psalm 37 Menagerie
  • Butterfly Glory
  • Books
  • ABOUT

Parade of Elephants

September 25, 2017 Jeff Reed
parade of elephants 2.jpg

The heat is juddering the panorama awake!

All the world is shimmer and shake

 

standing in front of the elephant parade

thundering down the desert scape

 

away from the secretive hunters of ivory,

away from the circus and drunken street clowns with their

 

whips and prods and chains.

Rise up, great ones, once again!

 

The Moab tribe is calling worldwide

for the elephants to assemble an unbroken line

 

heads shaking, trumpeting resistance,

circling the wounded, regathering the children,

 

trampling the profits the abusers have made

and setting in sandstone a justice parade.


This poem, after a long hiatus, continues my project of writing poems inspired by famous sandstone formations in Arches National Monument, Moab, Utah.  The Parade of Elephants formation brought me back to last summer when my kids and I visited an elephant refuge preserve in northern Thailand and we encountered first-hand elephants rescued from abusive contexts.  

← Climbing Dark AngelRiver that Runs Upward →

Powered by Squarespace

Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive new poems when they are posted.

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!