Old tusks ripped from the head
Now etched, carved and inked on trinkets
Birds, flowers, animals and trees
Dance across the dead dentin
Becomes perfume jars, jewelry boxes
Decorative sculpture
Piano keys playing elephant songs
Of family gatherings, babies born, and anguish
The ivory torn from the context of life
Free from the beating hearts and memories
Screams out for identity
Remember me it cries
I was alive, I smelled the land
I saw the sunset
I wandered this great earth
In peace and harmony
That can never be expressed
By a trinket in a glass case
Or a skin on the floor by the fire
Or a head mounted on a wall
Man’s obsession with dominance
Over all that lives
Only hastens his own demise
Who will mount his head
Above the fireplace mantle?