The herd is on the march.
They lumber with slow
determination.
The young achieve
playful swagger,
but aren't allowed
too wide of the line.
I wonder whether they're
going someplace good?
fragile herd,
living in the space between
Kilimanjaro’s broad shoulders
[too broad to see without a panning view]
on an oasis of glacial melt
runoff that grows a plume of vivid green
amid the red-brown savannah lands
where dust devils daily form
below the equatorial belt
and when the runoff runs out
there’ll be no time to run
belly-deep in glacial runoff
amid an emerald sea
a mud-caked troupe of elephants
the marsh free of acacia trees
Kilimanjaro looms in the distance
the source of all subsistence
if it should go
they’ll never know
it’s a death they can’t outdistance
Circling the wagons around the youngin’s
Ears out at dusk
Shaking head with ears out
Ears out and head aligned; Taken in April of 2017 in Botswana
Taken in June of 2017 at Chobe National Park
Taken on June 26, 2017 at Amboseli National Park in Kenya
Taken in May of 2016 at Lilayi Elephant Nursery near Lusaka, Zambia
the !n(tro)verted yogi 