While biologists take notes in Land Rovers,
elephant matriarchs discuss social solutions 
with rumbles, inaudible as the sound of dry ground.

What if elephants are as chatty 
as a stomach you lay your ear against?

What if trees talk all the time and we don’t 
have the right stethoscope?

In my back yard a salt and pepper rabbit clacks
her teeth. Snails embrace with attention 
that puts Siddhartha’s concubine to shame.  

And in a puddle out on the road, NPR
is recording microbes, who chatter like a claque 
before the opera, primed to clap after every aria.

Have you heard the microbes sing?