The Elephant That Could Paint

The Elephant That Could Paint

The elephant picked up a paintbrush one day,
And nobody knew what he planned to paint,
He dipped his long trunk into a pot full of blue,
Then painted a picture of the sky he once knew.

He painted the trees with their branches spread wide,
And a river that sparkled and twisted beside,
He painted the mountains that stood far away,
Then added the sun at the beginning of day.

The people came running to see what he knew,
For nobody thought that an elephant could do,
But there on the canvas, beneath the bright sun,
Was a world full of colour, and everyone stunned.

He painted the birds as they flew through the air,
And flowers that seemed to be growing from there,
He painted a butterfly resting on a rose,
Then painted the elephant nobody knows.

A little girl asked him, where did you learn art,
The elephant looked at her and touched her heart,
He pointed towards all the things he could see,
And showed her the world as it seemed to be.

He painted the moon with a trail of white light,
And stars that appeared in the middle of night,
He painted a family of elephants too,
Walking together beneath skies of blue.

Then suddenly something quite strange came to be,
He painted a picture of you and of me,
Two people together, with smiles on their face,
Standing beneath an enormous old tree.

The people grew silent and stared at the wall,
For nobody knew how he painted it all,
But somehow the elephant seemed to explain,
That pictures can speak without saying a name.

He painted his memories, painted his dreams,
He painted the places that lived in his dreams,
And every new picture he carefully made,
Was filled with the colours that never could fade.

When morning arrived, he returned to his chair,
With paint on his trunk and some stuck in his hair,
He picked up his brush with a confident smile,
And started a masterpiece stretching a mile.

They gave him a gallery, a room of his own,
With paintings that reached from the floor to the stone,
And people came travelling from miles away,
To see what the elephant chose to paint each day.

But late one evening, when nobody knew,
He painted one final enormous tattoo,
A picture of himself beneath a golden sky,
Holding his paintbrush and watching time fly.

And underneath it, in letters so small,
He painted no words there, he needed none at all,
For everyone looking could plainly see,
An elephant had painted what it meant to be free.