Elephant

To feel the smooth skin of water on your back,
to wash the hill-dry dirt from your face,
to dream of elephants, ears spread

like the wrinkled wings of an ancient angel.
To believe in the baptism of nature,
to immerse in the loss of everything—

not just your father, not just your lover,
but your god. It's all
nothing in the low grass,

it's all the nothing of air—
we remember like elephants, then we are gone.
We are nothing.

We don't float away on the breath of dandelions,
we don't ascend. We land. Solid as rocks
embedded in hills, unmoving and mute.

Copyright © 2007 Kate Evans All rights reserved
from Alehouse
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission