Randel McCraw Helms
At a Wake of Elephants
In Botswana once, I found a ruined hulk,
Her grey hide streaked with vultures’ dung, both tusks
Intact; not poachers, then, but nature’s work.
Then I saw the scorches down her stiffened leg,
Sign a lightning-bolt had claimed this matriarch
As she fed upon the greenness in her prime.
Moved, I promised myself I would return, as to
A Sunday churchyard, all that year, and watch
Her yielding back, ungrudged, her every precious gift.
How soon God cleans and purifies his whitest bones!
Two seasons’ work and all was done. Nesting birds
Had claimed the hairs, jackals and scavengers
The hide, after vultures, lions and smaller fry
Stripped the softer flesh. There remained to perform
But a wake, some memorial to all this love
And joy, now gone back to the source. I knew
Her migrant herd would return with the rain, and so
Would I, to watch and, I hoped, to grieve with them.
The season came round again, and crowds to graze.
I saw a group approach the gleaming skull,
As to a holy place. All vocalizing ceased.
Like loved ones silent at an open grave, they stood,
Until their matriarch first nosed a tusk,
Most tenderly, from base to point. Then she grasped
It with her nostrils’ tip, and tugged, and rocked
And wrapped it round with massive love while
Rumbling deepest words of grief I could feel
Within my bones. Then each adult performed
The same slow, sacred rite, while their young ones
Gamboled, as in a shining field of tombs.
A long hour passed, and still they reminisced
And mourned. The hot sun set, and still they mourned.
Then most at last trooped thirsting away, save one tall
Female, daughter, I guessed, to those beloved remains:
She stayed, alone, silent, to touch each scattered part.
At a Wake of Elephants
In Botswana once, I found a ruined hulk,
Her grey hide streaked with vultures’ dung, both tusks
Intact; not poachers, then, but nature’s work.
Then I saw the scorches down her stiffened leg,
Sign a lightning-bolt had claimed this matriarch
As she fed upon the greenness in her prime.
Moved, I promised myself I would return, as to
A Sunday churchyard, all that year, and watch
Her yielding back, ungrudged, her every precious gift.
How soon God cleans and purifies his whitest bones!
Two seasons’ work and all was done. Nesting birds
Had claimed the hairs, jackals and scavengers
The hide, after vultures, lions and smaller fry
Stripped the softer flesh. There remained to perform
But a wake, some memorial to all this love
And joy, now gone back to the source. I knew
Her migrant herd would return with the rain, and so
Would I, to watch and, I hoped, to grieve with them.
The season came round again, and crowds to graze.
I saw a group approach the gleaming skull,
As to a holy place. All vocalizing ceased.
Like loved ones silent at an open grave, they stood,
Until their matriarch first nosed a tusk,
Most tenderly, from base to point. Then she grasped
It with her nostrils’ tip, and tugged, and rocked
And wrapped it round with massive love while
Rumbling deepest words of grief I could feel
Within my bones. Then each adult performed
The same slow, sacred rite, while their young ones
Gamboled, as in a shining field of tombs.
A long hour passed, and still they reminisced
And mourned. The hot sun set, and still they mourned.
Then most at last trooped thirsting away, save one tall
Female, daughter, I guessed, to those beloved remains:
She stayed, alone, silent, to touch each scattered part.
Randel McCraw Helms is retired from Arizona State University’s English Department. His recent poems have appeared in such places as Dappled Things, Blood & Bourbon, and Young Ravens.