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Though it be buried in the stifling mud
Of the watery grave of our labour,
The mammoth’s past strains and shrieks,
Echoing through the hollow halls of its captors,
Metal, glass, and mortar proud against its anguished gust.
Once, a titanic frame towered,
The cool shade of reverence spreading wide and soft.
As a Colossus, as a titan, it thundered and commanded,
Guarding our harbours from the breaking waves of narcissism.
What pitiable moan has replaced the godlike bellow!
What soot and grime coating once brilliant, sun-strengthened skin!
What selfish subjugation to the fleeting whims of morality!
Cornered in the thicket, it has cowered as a hunted animal.
Fleeing the gleeful, ignorant power of a child with a gun,
It has retreated from the coastline, dashing inward
To the darkened plains of the continent,
Where it may dwell in the dusky memory of tradition.
Spotting the ancient verdant steppe,
The spangled sand of the seabed,
The flaked and rusty earth of the wilds,
Its footprints fill, stale and stagnant with disuse.
All quivering and moribund, all conquered clay and custom lost,
Where once its footpath stood, a string of muddy pits remain.
Chained in a dank grave, under sorrowful foliage and milky haze,
The mammoth and the mire.
And when we are defeated,
When we are chained by petulance and greed
In a swampy tomb that grasps us all,
Will it rise from its exile, roaring as it bursts through the soil
And soars over us to guard and dominate?
Or will it lie silent, forever ruined,
Its once-great limbs long reduced to pulp?
Mark Waters (son)
Age: 17
St. James Catholic High School, Guelph, ON