PACHYDERMS:

As the dew-dropped dawn from the velvety night is torn,

Another searing, blistering day in Africa is birthed & born,

The scatterings & scatterlings slowly begin to stretch & stir,

Every little insect, each & every beast of scale, claw, hair & fur.

As the laughing African day runs away with the sweltering sun,

All beasts scuttle, slide, pronk, slither, & away they leap & run,

As midday sits sullenly in the lap of the silent & brooding Gods,

Across the stretched echoing silence, the old grey elephant plods.

Bearing his ancient ivory wisdom across the empty basin of dust,

Weeping musth, furrowed within his wrinkled skin of thirsty lust,

His trumpeting, warning his herd of forewarned impending pain,

On spying the sickly glint, the guns of the white man´s evil gain.

On the dark brooding horizon, behind his alert frantic leafed ears,

Flapping away curious flies & his permanent & imminent sad fears,

Listening to the heat-filled silence as it hotly glistens & sorely blisters,

Hearing within the purple heat, the distant storm that softly whispers.

The echoing polyglottic voices of all Africa´s birds & beautiful beasts,

Can be heard across the continent, at the due rain´s promised feast,

The ancient pachyderm knows that just around the next dusty bend,

The searing, the scorching, the thirst-filled pain will come to an end.