5. Memephant

Tripping on toes, too long and flimsy

The memephant stumbles on,

Too strung and tipsy to do anything,

Than walk, stutter, and smatter tongues

Great holes in the bushes it passes by

Made of the dream-trees, and the blind-bees

All stampede suddenly past; at last

The memephant’s left its lonely path

At once it’s encircled by a treacle-vine

That suddenly, glues toes to ground,

No longer soft, but hard; entwined

Restricts breathing ‘til the memephant gives out

Twin trumpets of soot, and cloudlets of ash

Encircling the tower of trunk, that topples

And a leg flails blindly in vain, and soot’s sundered –

Of the memephant, only the trunk escapes