What Elephants Remember

[Philatone]

V. 4

Months of sunlight
open envelopes of memory,
the march to ponds

with softer brush for mother's
broken teeth, years before her ivory
fell to dust like slabs of marble.

Those tusks,
chiseled from a nimbus
of elephant leather,

never left.
They embrace the tall stalks
that fed her when the fields dried,

soothed her hollow gums;
held her head
when death refused.

Those white knives
who carved baobab trunks
with names for thirst

won't stop hiding
in every spread of elephant grass
too thin to hide

curls of tooth, bone,
how it hurts
to remember and forget.

V. 3

What Elephants Remember

Behind the maps to water holes,
one matron keeps locked in drawers
photographs of her mother's
bone and silent ivory.

To a calf, those tusks had hung
overhead like strokes of thunder
chiseled from a cloud of grey,

stiffened into marble headstones
at the grave. The softened blades
fed her mother when the fields

dried, and soothed her jaws when passing
teeth too old to grow again;
held her head when death refused.

Queens cannot give back a crown,
just a name to those buried
in Uganda grass, not knowing
how it hurts to forget.







v2. still working on final stanza. minor changes thanks to billy

Matriarchs may store the most
in their cerebellum drawers:
shelves of maps to water holes,
photographs of their mothers'
bone and silent ivory,
white as marble torn from mines.

To a calf, those tusks had hung
in the air like strokes of thunder
chiseled from a cloud, only

to unravel into plated
pulp and blood as an adult,
who may pass a graveyard with
names for every body buried
in the softened grass, not knowing
how it hurts to forget, too.







V. 1
Matriarchs may store the most
in their cerebellum drawers:
shelves of maps to water holes,
photographs of their mothers'
bone and silent ivory,
white as marble in a field.

As a calf, those tusks had hung
in the air like strokes of thunder
chiseled from a cloud, only

to unravel into dentin,
pulp, and blood as an adult,
who may pass a graveyard with
names for every body buried
in the softened grass, not knowing
how it hurts to forget, too.