Tusks From the Tundra

The warming sun teases a few inches of life,
Urging timid sprouts above soggy soil.
Beneath the sudden birth of lakes and ponds,
Men tap the permafrost for pools of oil.

The caribou with stately antlers proud,
Ekes out his meal from the tundra’s spare green.
His foraging cut short by an arrow,
It whistles through the air, the hunter unseen.

In time, the fox puts on his winter coat,
And listens for prey deep beneath the snow.
This, his frozen home for twenty thousand years,
His place secure in the tundra’s life flow.

He wears Nature’s seasonal apparel,
Its slate blue warmth contrasts frosty skies,
Coveted by trappers for its beauty,
Draped over human shoulders like a prize.

The tundra - where once mighty mammoths walked,
Then left their bodies, sealed in perma-death.
Their last meals preserved as digestion halted,
They lie embalmed in icy, Arctic breath.

And yet find no peace in this frozen land.
Descendants of their enemies still,
Hunt their ghosts in this ivory graveyard,
Their shed tusks entombed in perma-chill.

The treeless tundra and its harsh terrain,
Host a never-ending and ageless fight.
The life and death struggle for meager means,
No peace to be found in its endless night.


*As the permafrost in the tundra begins to melt, millions of mammoth tusks buried there in the ice begin to emerge, as do new and previously undiscovered reserves of oil and natural gas. There is now a large market for the ivory from mammoth tusks. They are hunted even after death for their precious ivory.