In a world of watery hues,
greens and blues,
her vision is binocular,
staring at the moon, oblivious to stars.
Her worn ears, torn ears, flare,
moth-eaten flags as she sways
through overhanging leaves,
trunk reaching. She grieves.
Vibrations of heart and lungs
ripple wavelike across skin,
map of life ingrained
with wrinkles, rubs and stains.
Floundering feet, ancient prints in the dust,
track memories older than her tusks.
Kim M. Russell, 5th October 2020
My response to earthweal weekly challenge: Haunted Wilderness
Brendan says that, since it’s October, we are ‘revisiting our earthweal sights on the haunted world we’re inheriting and ever in the act of passing on. Extinction is the chilling, ever-growing shadow formed by the Anthropocene: the haunting is vast.’ He quotes from Rebecca Giggs’ Fathoms: The World in the Whale and the idea that ‘when animals die out, the cultural and ecological relationships that furnish their existence can be experienced as a kind of nonstop haunting’.
For this challenge, Brendan asks us to write of haunted wilderness. He has posed a number of questions to get us thinking.
I chose to re-write a poem I wrote back in 2015.
writing in north norfolk 
Elephants have way too much grieving to do now…they are wonderful creatures and we will be so much poorer in spirit when they no longer roam the earth.
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I worry about elephants, Kerfe. They have been around for so long and humans have treated them so badly.
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I worry too. Irreplaceable.
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I love this, Kim, it is such an intimate portrait of the mind and body of the elephant. You trace the entire contour, taking in both vision that is “binocular,” a gait that “sways” and skin that “ripples.” We need remembrances of ghosts so finely drawn. – B
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Thank you so much, Brendan. I’m glad I got it out and brought it back to life.
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A world without elephants sounds so utterly sad. They are such wonderful creatures and do grieve. I hope their passing from the earth is a long time coming.
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Me too.
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The grief of elephants, and of the world. This is so beautiful and so sad, Kim.
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Thank you, Sarah. I’ve always had a tenderness for elephants.
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Such pathos in this, Kim.
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Thank you, Jane.
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Wonderfully written, sad truth.
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Thank you, Tiffany.
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Ah, i love elephants, gentle beings long of memory, and deep emotion.
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They are amazing animals.
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How terribly we have treated the elephants: a sad song indeed, Kim.
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Elephants are such wonderful creatures.
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