A Memory of Elephants

Elephants marched through the graveyard

Feet sticking, peat strands and willow catkins catching

Around trunks, finger-like.

Elephants are forward-moving things, that go,

And no coat under fallen leaves will arrest one,

Even the dawdlemost rearelephant at the very caboose.

The graveyard was wide enough to permit a passing of elephants,

And they went, in twos, beneath the arc of the moon,

And the whistling of the wind, and the clawing of branches,

And the gravestones, and the tombdoors, and the things

With fingers that ought not to have fingers.

Lamplights in little pots around their necks, swinging. The littlest elephant

Tarries by the wrought iron gate, lantern tied to tail.

She looks behind at the ruins, at the things

With the fingers, at the wind, the swaying hemlock—and then turns:

A row of ridges, cracking grey, the swaying of heavy bodies,

A line of hills, a glowing inn, a straight road.

The caboose elephant scurries to rejoin the memory.