Elephant Mountain:

a seasonal perspective

by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes

eileen.Pearkes@telus.net

I: Dreams of Chartreuse Silk

When a mother elephant gives birth,

the herd forms a circle to protect her while a friend coaxes the baby out,

pulling it into a protected pool of warmth.

Shrouds of pewter cloud wrap around a swollen mountain form,

whispering a green secret. The birth begins

low and

rises toward the sky

until it shouts and writhes with the full pleasure of a life.

Child-season claimed by flesh

illumined with dreams of chartreuse silk

shimmering with light.

The shroud melts away from the labouring form,growth springing from hard limbs.

Birch catkins foam yellow-green,

bundles of larch needle brush the air and the sky

lifts

toward the sun

I stand in the circle, attending a birth I had not anticipated.

I feel the internal frenzy swell and rise until it becomes

a desire too large

to hold.

II. Elephant Dust (circa 1930)

for Dawn Penniket

Mother calls down onto the street where we are playing

The elephant is burning!

We see flakes of skin loosened from the mountain’s thick bones, floating on the wind.

I try to grasp them as they drift past.

Later, we crowd onto the deck of the house on Cedar Street

watching flames lick the curving back with their sharpened tongues.

We gasp

as burned, broken logs roll down the trunk into the lake below

Mother leans forward toward the railing and wipes dishwater on her apron. She

whispers a word I do not understand: Apocalyptic

Grandfather's bed has been on the porch since the heat wave started several days ago.

He has lain all day and night on the mattress, sheets surrounding him like clouds.

I am waiting to die, his sallow face says,

I am waiting to die.

Cinders drift around us while we eat supper on the porch.

We dip our fingers in the elephant skin on the railing and wipe it across our shirt sleeves.

Mother frowns with disapproval and grandfather's bed linens grow dingy with the ash,

but his eyes brighten

his face flushes with life.

We bob on the end of the bed, knowing that he won’t shout at us to stop.

Lightening strike, he says, his gravelled voice stirred by the flames to speak.

I hear cows on the Johnstone farm at the elephant’s feet.

Their terrified groans float across the water on the ash-choked wind.

Them cows are’s good as dead grandfather says.  Unless they can swim.

At sunset the wind shifts. Mother says Thank the Lord.

Ash swirls north, carrying flames back over the elephant’s back.

We count the spot fires glowing against darkness

one, two....three, four

and begin to wait once again for grandfather to die.

five, six....seven

III. If a Mountain Could Paint

The art historian Mia Fineman says that as painters,

elephants are masters of the rapidly executed, spontaneous gesture

When they paint, she concludes,

some elephants prefer darker, cooler colours

with brushstrokes expressing contained rage

while others like bold, clear colours, lyrical and expressive

or tertiary hues like mustardy orange in creamy, elegant applications

When I read about an art historian giving zoo elephants canvas, brush and tempera so that she can watch them paint

I look up toward your broad back and ask myself what colours you

in particular

would choose.

One day I don't have to ask anymore:

Cold October air sweeps down from the high mountains overnight.

You have picked up a paintbrush and stroked yourself as only a wild elephant could --

golden ochre, saffron,

copper, burnished sunflower,

gamboges.

Your work delights my eye so much that

I pick up a brush too. But I fail to match

your contained rage at the coming winter

your lyrical vision of autumn's paradox.

your undertanding of the alchemy that necessarily precedes

the creation of gold..

What would Mia Fineman say?

IV. A Winter Affair

You thrust your weight on me

forcing the heft of this icy season against my weary passion

spreading your heavy flanks across my soul.

I scream at you to get up

Light is so precious!

You have grown lazy with the cold.

You trap me with your sloping trunk and satisfied body

draped irresistibly in the linen of snow.

One day

when the winter sky falls further, further,

I have my wish.

You disappear in a wash of fog and snow.

I begin to contemplate then how it might feel to live here without you.

I grow desperate for clear weather,

when the winter sun will illumine your beauty again,

when I will see you freshly as you are.

I admit a preference as winter wears on: immovable certainty over the weight of your absence.

I confess to myself that I treasure 

the potent measure of your broad, sunlit back,

the power of your muscled flanks of snow,

the strength of your masculine resolve

imposing a clear form upon the sky.