Bull elephants, when not weeping need, wander soberly alone.
Only females congregate and talk, in a seismic baritone:

Dawn and sundown we honour you, Jehovah Brahm,
who allow us to intone our ground bass in towering calm.

Inside the itchy fur of life is the sonorous planet Stone
which we hear and speak through, depending our flugelhorn.

Winds barrel, waves shunt shore, earth moans in ever-construction
being hurried up the sky, against weight, by endless suction.

We are two species, male and female. Bulls run to our call.
We converse. They weep, and announce, but rarely talk at all.

As presence resembles everything, our bulls reflect its solitude
and we, suckling, blaring, hotly loving, reflect its motherhood.

Burnt-maize-smelling Death, who brings the collapse-sound bum-bum,
has embryos of us on its free limbs: four legs and a thumb.

From dusting our newborn with puffs, we assume a boggling pool
into our heads, to re-silver each other's wrinkles and be cool.

Published in Translations from the Natural World (Isabella Press, 1992).