Fredrick Zydek

 Walking With Elephants

Great herds of them wander through my dreams,

wallow in mud flats so cleansing, flies keep their

distance.  I go among them unnoticed, a voyeur

visiting their ways from the mystery of sleep.

How do I thank the universe for creating beings

as marvelous as these?  Did you know their trunks

can be six feet long, a three hundred pound mass

of boneless meat so strong and flexible it can toss

a ton of anything over its shoulders, pluck a single

blade of grass from a field, pick up something as

small as a peanut, shoot a stream of water with

enough force to knock a man to the ground, calm

one of the herd’s children or lift the bones of one

of their own who has passed to the other side.

It is an anomaly that they are such good swimmers

but can neither trot, jump nor gallop.  I watch as

they lumber about the savanna, plucking choice

branches from the trees, wadding up bunches

of grass, living in the perfection of the now that

surrounds them, making their way to the next water

hole where the future waits to quench their thirst

so they can return to what the planet has in store

for them.  I know they understand that who they

are has never depended upon what we have become.

Fredrick Zydek

is the author of eight collections of poetry.  T’Kopechuck: the Buckley Poems is forthcoming from Winthrop Press later this year.  Formerly a professor of creative writing and theology at the University of Nebraska and later at the College of Saint Mary, he is now a gentleman farmer when he isn’t writing.  He is also the editor for Lone Willow Press. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Cimmaron Review, The Hollins Critic, New England Review, Nimrod, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Yankee, and others.  He is the recipient of the Hart Crane Poetry Award, the Sarah Foley O'Loughlen Literary Award and others.