Pachyderms lament

How could CITES ever contemplate
A time when they
Knew the war against the pachyderms
Was on
But they looked away
All that intimidation
That chauvinistic gore
The bloodshed and attrition
Each skirmish sad and raw

Broke through hearts and minds
And souls and invasion of pure wrath
As the elephant herds did wander
On their chosen path
Pacifists in so many ways
Non combatants in fact
Subjected to such aggression
Their offensive backed

By go betweens and trouble shooters
Out there on the tracks
Negotiating peace and truth
Warding off attacks
Contingents of the mercenaries
And others who would sell
Their own souls for a pittance
And ride back into hell

To use stealth and pugnacity
In defiance of the true
And with their reckless provocation
Run the great ones through
Challenging their countenance
And then stealing away
With their tusks torn off their body
In an arrogant display

Disharmony and dissonance
Disunion we see
To quarrel with the Giants
Using so much infamy
Resourceful machination
And an ambush possibly
Supplying the black markets
And the guileful trickery

A battle ground where the innocent
Fell their screams unheard
Watched over by the vultures
Who heard their every word
The jackals and the others
Ready to consume
What was left though now bereft
Of life
Just doom and gloom

And CITES flexing muscles
Needed to be strong
To establish its authority
To join up every throng
It’s supremacy now evident
The planet too could feel
The need to protect the Giants
Whose majesty was real

Harassment and oppression
And pitiless contempt
The despotic were created
Really their attempt
To persecute and victimize
With malevolence and pain
To subjugate the innocent
And trumpet their refrain

Ivory so sought after
Out there in the East
As China began growing
The nature of the beast
The richer climbed their ladders
Wanting there to be
Objects in their households
Made of Ivory

Menial to that point
Underlings let’s say
With a freedom of expression
And a bond to pass their way
An unravelling of classes
And a need to impress
To own A piece of Ivory
And never want for less

China’s poor were richer
And alas they didn’t see
That wanting to move up
The social ladder and be free
Took it on themselves
To look for ivory to buy
Not actually thinking
That elephants must die

Ignorance was widespread
Arrogance was too
The overtures of freedom
With their light came
Flooding through
Merchants well they are everywhere
Hucksters and the rest
Black markets and the darkly set
Surely there to test

The dirge though filled the heavens
Social media exclaimed
Millions of tiny voices
Reached out all inflamed
Telling the true story
Of the pachyderms lament
Of the ivory how it was stolen
And great lives were spent

Their beauty and sublimity
Their nobility so grand
Giants ranging splendidly
Over the vast land
Of Africa attesting to the need
To wander far
Great herds etching pathways
And following their star

She to CITES and to some elephant pages