The African Elephant

Photo: (c) Arne Witt/African elephant, Amboseli National Park

There is no recourse but to pause

and gasp, besieged by wonderment,

when you realize this love-challenged world

of ours, still,

still,

is holding space for such

raw and aged magnificence.

I couldn’t have dreamed him,

not even if I were the most gifted

of dreamers –

Dreams are humble enough to know

when they are best left in

in a pillow’s shallow cup.

He’s what makes reality

worth visiting.

And, in this moment,

sigh,

if Amboseli offered to write

my name in her salty dust,

I might be inclined to stay

for awhile…

Barefoot,

A woman remembering

what it really means

to be wild.

A maiden in the bush.

I’ve met elders before;

Their palms are so worn from

story telling with their hands

that their lifelines take up residence

in their eyes.

This one too.

And on his hide,

the intersecting

valleys and ridges

of a thousand parched wrinkles

collect in drapes and folds

at belly and ankle.

In concentric circles they cascade down

the length of his long, thick trunk

to its sensitive tip -

where he explores and reasons

unreasonable things.

These places that generations

of red-billed oxpeckers

have used as perches and swing sets,

gravity employs to record time,

and wisdom earned.

He understands what a day is for.

Perhaps this savannah

wouldn’t be so dry

if we all understood.

Sometimes the vervets climb

into the acacias and tell

his story.

He collects their gossip in the

flap of his ears and lets it

bounce a bit.

Sometimes it comes closer to

the truth that way.

None of them were there

to see.

For them, the horizon lines

have always been a place

of emptiness.

He re-members herds so large

the earth was a bed of rolling,

hoof-thundering clouds.

This is what gave the Maasai their

sense of rhythm and inspired

them to take joyous leaps of faith.

This was before the free ones

were called “game.”

Before there was a price tag on

his tusks.

Before he wondered if his last

breath would be seized by bullets

and saw blades.

Certainly,

This would disappoint

the dung beetles,

he muses.

Still, being loyal to ghosts

is a wearisome task

for the yet-living.

How do I convince an elephant

that we can learn?

Might he be inspired to hope?

If I asked,

Could he tell me where we went wrong?

© 2012-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" (www.hiraethpress.com)

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