Monday, April 30, 2012

Elephant Graveyard


      Elephant Graveyard
      ------------------ 
      Wouldn't it be
      a combination of funny and sad
      if the world just ended.
      Not a bang:
                   a large scale majestic exit,
      but just stopped.
      No flourish of trumpets,
      red carpet or twenty-one gun salute
      but one peaceful white elephant
      walking toward the graveyard.
      Not fighting back, knowing full its fate
                       and accepting...
      Laying down one leg first, then the next
      and in a calm,
                   steady
                           motion
      the other two.
      Leaning to one side, not moving itself,
      letting gravity pull it
                                 over.
      Stretching out the legs that will never again
      have to support its weight.
      It lets out a solitary sigh
      unheard, un-echoing:
      without a beginning or an end.
      It closes its eyes.
      It is gone.
       


      by Norman Dziedzic
      (c) 1989, Red Shoes Review
      Originally published in Red Shoes Review
      Volume 7 Number 1, Fall 1989

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