First, find the reliquary:
Collect the bones of the mammoth,
regurgitated onto the shore
by the agitate cycle of thawing permafrost,
rinse clean by the frigid lake’s lapping,
swelled in a jumble of reeds
on the pebbled shore.
Second, bioethics and cloning:
Something, something DNA,
scientists, test tubes, maybe
a centrifuge and probably an elephant.
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 canvas 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
as they lie on the tundra overgrown with saplings
that hoard particles of heat like gold;
coax them onto the spongy ground
barely able to contain their weight.
Consider giant snowshoes to diffuse
their ungainly mass?
Fifth, labor:
After a good long drink at the lake
through supple bristled trunks, when they peer out
coquettishly from eyes curtained by long lashes against the snow;
show them how to trample the trees, strip the leaves,
leave the tundra bare, cooling the earth’s
fevered brow.
Sixth, pray:
Though it be zaprescheno, pray.
