by Elisabeth Horan
Elephants never let their loved ones
Die alone
Never let God come first for their tired,
Broken bones
But protect the soul from jackals,
Hyenas
Endeavor to prevent the cruel rape of her
Ivory for profit
Elephants enact their ceremony;
Create a circle of love and protection
For a friend, a loved one;
A child, a mother.
Till the very end—
When survival forces them to march on
Once the soul has traveled safely
Off, in Mother Nature’s arms.
Elisabeth Horan is a poet mother student lover of kind people and animals, homesteading in Vermont with her tolerant partner and two young sons. She hopes the earth can withstand us and that humans may learn to be more kind to each other and to Mother Nature.
She has work upcoming at formercactus, Writers Resist, The Cerurove and Mohave Heart. Her chapbook “Pensacola Girls” comes to life from Bone & Ink Press this September.
Elisabeth is a 2018 MFA Candidate at Lindenwood University and teaches at River Valley Community College in New Hampshire.
Follow her @ehoranpoet / ehoranpoet.com
(In case you’re not following Elisabeth on Twitter, be sure to see how her muse woke her up with this poem. We’re so happy it did! – Elephants Never)