First, a reliquary:
Collect the bones of the mammoth,
delivered onto the shore
by the soak cycle of thawing tundra,
rinsed clean by the lapping frigid lake,
and swaddled in a jumble of reeds
on a pebbled shore.
Second, bioethics and cloning:
Something something DNA,
scientists, test tubes, maybe
a centrifuge and an elephant, I guess.
Wait ten years. A mammoth is not
a velociraptor, so don’t worry
about any of that.
Third, intermodal transit:
Carefully place brand-new,
sedated mammoths into slings
and hoist them high enough
so their fur-fringed foot pads
don’t drag along the tree line
and bring the helicopter down.
Fourth, implied consent:
Wake them gently with caresses
on the tundra overgrown with saplings
hoarding particles of heat like gold,
coax mammoths onto the spongy ground
barely able to contain their weight.
(Consider – giant snowshoes to spread out
their ungainly mass?)
Fifth, unionize:
After a good long drink at the lake
through supple bristled trunks, while peering out
of eyes fringed with lashes curtained against the snow –
show them how to trample the trees, strip the leaves,
leave the tundra treeless, cooling the earth’s
fevered brow.
Sixth, pray:
Though it be zaprescheno, pray.
Halfway North 