The elephant
on the cover of
Les Murray's Collected Poems
reminds me of an elephant
that died last year in the Kabul Zoo.

She was blind
and her knees,
the front left
and the right back,
had cracked.

As she tried
to pull herself up
and lift her beautiful trunk
she swayed like an uprooted tree
and fell down with a thud.

Her head rolled
the ears flapped
and two huge drops
froze near the cusps
of her gluey eyes.

The dust
from the muddy ground rose
and settled slowly
over her parched skin
and spread like dry creeks
through the wrinkled topography of her back.

She was dying
on that hot summer day
far from the jungles of Burma
from where in a goods train
she was brought to a city
designed by a Soviet architect,
a student of Le Corbousier.

The chief zoologist
was a communist
who adored animals.
He felt that the children
who had seen only goats, horses and camels,
and occasionally a tiger or a wolf
would benefit from learning to love the elephants.

They, the children,
called her Meena,
the one with beautiful eyes,
and made her
their princess.

The princess
was sleeping
the night
the bomb
looking for the Talibans
hit the ground
lifting her up like a balloon
and dropping her back
on the dry
lumpy bank of the river.

In the morning
as the hot dusty sun rose
a man on a bicycle came
with knife saw and hammer
to claim whatever was left of the tusks.

He patted her gently
washed her wounds
and after feeding her
a few lumps of brown sugar
rode away with the loot.

As if
to complete the picture
a girl as young as the one
on the cover of Les Murray's book
arrived in the evening.

She fetched
water from the river
flowers from the field
and after taking off
her Jaipuri-legs
sat on the ground
kneeling against the elephant's back.

That is when
I imagine
the man with the camera
decided to shoot.