Georgia Kennedy
I.I'm serious, watching these boys is like watching
the giant beauties.
Peaceful hunters, gentle beasts.
Softly they move through the thick
turning things green.
They saunter, lights igniting,
clouds and flowers pollinating, everything full.
I walked down McIver street, thinking not just this
but how the whole street
at that time was saturated, bursting
with color (magenta) flavor (rosemary, basil, sage)
sound (birds never been so loud, so on it).
I'm from this town. I've lived here my whole life.
Let me tell you; McIver street was never seen/
tasted/heard like this.
The street sounded, everything sounded, like they had just been there.
The gentle beasts could turn a street,
their whispered words, their quickness,
their flutter, their firm
could drown a girl.
I drank, and drank, and drank.
They smother. Do they know it?
II.For five or ten minutes I watched.
Being a little less than obvious,
I caught one on the other side of a tree
standing up a little higher than the rest,
spouting water out of his trunk a little more
boldly, et cetera,
but he saw me watching him,
sank back down into the water
trunk-out, moved back toward his buddies,
and before long they had all assembled on land
and disappeared into the savanna.
The watering hole didn't look the same after that,
nor did the bank, the place where they ascended,
or their path into the bush.
Did they leave something behind in their step?
Seeds? Mud honey?
III.When an elephant is in a room,
You can't really talk about him.
It's awkward; there are some logistical issues
concerning doorways and cubic meters.
An elephant in the wilderness has
a bewitching effect.
All the men/boys travel together,
all equally beautiful,
sauntering to the watering hole,
which is necessary
and recreational.
They know you're there,
Little American Tourist Who's Snapping Pictures,
but their mission is greater than making that awareness known.
They bushwhack; they disrupt earth.
IV.Anyhow, there are plenty of other animals for you to see:
kob, baboon, wild boar, crocodile,
so your day is not entirely planned around
their twice-a-day migration, although you left at 6:30,
paced your hike for 1.5 hours exactly and rented
boots because of the snakes.
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