Jumbo and Alice (from GREATEST HITS)
Jumbo the Elephant was struck and killed by a freight train at St. Thomas,
Ontario. He was stuffed and continued to be exhibited with his mate, Alice—
Historical Products Calendar
An elephant never forgets his past lives,
or so the Hindu legends say.
One wonders what Jumbo next became,
what soul expansive enough
to house that gently huge body:
at his best, graceful as a whippet
or race horse, though in larger slow motion.
One wonders, too, how Alice felt,
to have the facsimile, never the fact,
before her. Did she at first
trumpet a welcome after his absence,
try to unfreeze him with a flirty
sway of her head and shoulders,
a nudge from her more
than comforting hindquarters?
Perhaps she accepted his immobility,
cumbersome as a mountain to maneuver
around him in their cage or the ring,
no longer a need to shackle his feet
loving to climb the air when children
gaped their mouths wider than his withers.
But perhaps hope thudded dimly
in her heart at the sight of him
in the rain, drops slithering down
his gray forehead she had so loved
to nuzzle. Perhaps she mistook
the water for tears—he too
remembering his last life,
the best one, rolling back to him
behind eyes glittery as marbles
while he waited with the patience
of elephants for his next life to begin.
