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.
 


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