I have in my care three elephants
two males
one female
they are very sick
from too much time in the heat of the sun
they’ve come to a place of shade and safety now
but they’re dying
the female is the sickest.
they have large ragged holes in their skins
burned into them by an unforgiving sun
weak and withered
dried and dying
drained of power
they wait and they suffer.
I’ve noticed them only recently
I know that without my help
their time is short.
I haven’t been trained to care for these holy creatures
so I ask others for help
one well-intentioned man
young bureaucrat in uniform
suggests a cage for shade and safety
they’re dying! I remind him
but they’ll be very safe he says.
others are not interested at all
some make jokes
this is urgent!
who will help me?
these animals need water
lots of it
more than I can ever provide
with the old buckets once used by
my father
my uncles
my grandfathers
elephants have other needs too
but water is basic and must come first.
I’m desperate
time is short
I walk up a slow hill on a back country road
(I’ve walked this road in younger days)
looking for someone to help me save these sacred beasts.
_____________________
Excerpted from Iron Man Family Outing: Poems about Transition into a More Conscious Manhood by Rick Belden. Copyright © 1990, 2008 by Rick Belden.
Thanks to all for reading and commenting. This life-changing dream helped me realize it was time to leave a job that was causing me horrible psychological and spiritual damage. I was afraid to quit, afraid to lose my income and security, but the dream showed me that I was going to hurt myself in deep and profound ways if I tried to stay.
I listened. I left that job, saving my sanity and probably my life. Within a few days of leaving, I found myself writing poetry again for the first time in about fifteen years, beginning to create the set of poems that became my first book. And the first poem I wrote was this one.
The poem speaks directly to you and yet never fails in conveying the anxieties and concerns. Loved reading it.
From beginning to end, you have made me feel deep emotion…sadness, compassion, anxiety. You have written feelings from your heart, without being “sappy,”…often difficult to do…but you accomplished it so well!
I observe the deliberate realism in the poem. Rick Belden is experimenting on a prosy way of writing poetry. It’s almost prose, but it isn’t. It has no embellishment, almost journalistic. No metaphors, just relating the subject as it is. This is something new to me. I admire original writers, and Belden is courageous for daring to be an original.