J.P. White
The Elephants are Listening…
To the giant sheets of ancient ice calving into the first salt bath,
To the electric prods used on the dancing bears and cheetahs,
To the fires leaping out of embers to enter the green pastures,
To the knives seeking out the meat and scales of the pangolin,
To the psalms spoken and unspoken in the strangle wee hours,
To the thin lips of the sea alive at the door of the failing mollusk,
To the never-ending procession of gullets swarming the street,
To the lava seeking the cold quick axe of the vertigo water,
To the tongues swollen with politics and a lust for weapons,
To the river in flood throwing off boulders big as houses,
To the flags whipping against the penthouse glass of the mega rich.
At this time of earth ruin and save-your-ass-if-you-can with your phone,
The elephants are listening to one another six miles away.
They are not gossiping, not speculating, not making enemies,
But making plans to find the next waterhole outside the burn.
They will remember everything after we have found the exit.
J.P. White is the author of the poetry collections The Sleeper at the Party (Defined Providence Press, 2001), The Salt Hour (The University of Illinois Press, 2001), The Pomegranate Tree Speaks from the Dictator’s Garden (Holy Cow Press, 1988), and In Pursuit of Wings (Panache Books, 1978). His essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds a BA from New College (1973), an MA from Colorado State University (1977), and an MFA from Vermont College (1990). He lives on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis.
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