What I learned from Elephants during the Pandemic
Elephant calf,
you know what it is to be young.
You squat on the bank or lean
into mounds of mud, trunk curled up.
Afraid of a two-inch-high creek
(it’s your first time), you won’t budge.
The mothers corral your body
and motion and nudge.
Mothers cross first to show how it’s done.
Spin in a tire swing.
Mother elephant untangles
your trunk from the rope.
Follow her back to the clearing.
When mama is tired, she lies down
beside you; your head beneath her large chin,
your back against her thigh.
When you nap, trunks now and then overlap.
When a mother gives birth,
the herd of mothers surrounds her.
And you in the throes of a rumble
of hunger, experiment
with that trunk. Snort and bellow.
We are born with a great capacity for joy.
You slosh and splash your young trunk,
then plonk one knee in the river over and over.
At the edge of the bank
you kneel before the plunge.
Lunge! Make your muscular music.
To Trees
1.
Their towering halos,
courtships of green arcing over the steep hill.
2.
A 500-year-old oak that sheltered me when I needed to cry.
Redwoods ready to teach me if only I could learn to stand still.
3.
Golden spatter of maple leaf piles
underfoot in Pittsburgh;
children tumbling in the crunch of color,
reds dying into browns amid smoky aromas of Fall.
4.
One scraggly elm offered my car
an inch of shade in a sweltering parking lot.
5.
A five-year-old steps up on one of the tree’s large feet,
and ascends its stairway covered with tiny lights.
A three-year-old girl swings her pink boa back and forth
rhythmically beneath while a guitarist sings Sephardic songs.
6.
A book about trees: my oracle.
One afternoon it opens on the word solace.
Beneath the word an illustration of tree paths in a forest.
A sign with an arrow cry here points to a chair.
I sit under the tree growing
in the middle of the page and almost fall into it.
7.
In my dream of trees, my student who has cancer
joins me. Her dark eyes shine like black beetles.
8.
When someone writes a wish
and ties it to a tree branch with string
the tree becomes a wish tree.
Other wishes quickly follow.
Curious neighbors assemble.
With so much attention
the tree joins the chorus of voices.
People touch tree branches
and mingle with other green lives.
9.
I study the hollowed trunk burnt
from the Woolsey fire.
Yet here we are,
open to our own growing
because of these trees.
10.
We perform our own version
of the New Year ritual, Tashlich.
We cast our letdowns and setbacks
of the last year into the water.
Beside the roiling stream,
we nosh on apples and honey, chocolate chunk
bread under deep blue sky.
Aspens turning color, a feast.
On the Beach Walk, a Heron
His long throat pulses.
His toes arched in sand,
his neck stretching
parallel to the Palms.
The trees make his neck
appear even taller.
He stands for so long a tourist
asks me if he is a statue.
He must be hunting.
See that reach of a beak.
He cranes. Then quiets.
On the far side of the bushes
ground squirrels chatter,
the same squirrels who attended
Yoga the other morning.
while practicing downward dog.
I want the heron to spread his
gorgeous wide wings. I want
the surprise of his rise
into the air, the sparkle
of ocean behind us.
Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear, a poetic memoir, (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards. She was awarded the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize from Lilith Magazine, and two literary fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council. She recently retired from teaching at California State University at Channel Islands. For many years she has been a poet/storyteller in the Schools. Publications include Alaska Quarterly Review, Nimrod, and Healing Muse.
Elephant calf,
you know what it is to be young.
You squat on the bank or lean
into mounds of mud, trunk curled up.
Afraid of a two-inch-high creek
(it’s your first time), you won’t budge.
The mothers corral your body
and motion and nudge.
Mothers cross first to show how it’s done.
Spin in a tire swing.
Mother elephant untangles
your trunk from the rope.
Follow her back to the clearing.
When mama is tired, she lies down
beside you; your head beneath her large chin,
your back against her thigh.
When you nap, trunks now and then overlap.
When a mother gives birth,
the herd of mothers surrounds her.
And you in the throes of a rumble
of hunger, experiment
with that trunk. Snort and bellow.
We are born with a great capacity for joy.
You slosh and splash your young trunk,
then plonk one knee in the river over and over.
At the edge of the bank
you kneel before the plunge.
Lunge! Make your muscular music.
To Trees
1.
Their towering halos,
courtships of green arcing over the steep hill.
2.
A 500-year-old oak that sheltered me when I needed to cry.
Redwoods ready to teach me if only I could learn to stand still.
3.
Golden spatter of maple leaf piles
underfoot in Pittsburgh;
children tumbling in the crunch of color,
reds dying into browns amid smoky aromas of Fall.
4.
One scraggly elm offered my car
an inch of shade in a sweltering parking lot.
5.
A five-year-old steps up on one of the tree’s large feet,
and ascends its stairway covered with tiny lights.
A three-year-old girl swings her pink boa back and forth
rhythmically beneath while a guitarist sings Sephardic songs.
6.
A book about trees: my oracle.
One afternoon it opens on the word solace.
Beneath the word an illustration of tree paths in a forest.
A sign with an arrow cry here points to a chair.
I sit under the tree growing
in the middle of the page and almost fall into it.
7.
In my dream of trees, my student who has cancer
joins me. Her dark eyes shine like black beetles.
8.
When someone writes a wish
and ties it to a tree branch with string
the tree becomes a wish tree.
Other wishes quickly follow.
Curious neighbors assemble.
With so much attention
the tree joins the chorus of voices.
People touch tree branches
and mingle with other green lives.
9.
I study the hollowed trunk burnt
from the Woolsey fire.
Yet here we are,
open to our own growing
because of these trees.
10.
We perform our own version
of the New Year ritual, Tashlich.
We cast our letdowns and setbacks
of the last year into the water.
Beside the roiling stream,
we nosh on apples and honey, chocolate chunk
bread under deep blue sky.
Aspens turning color, a feast.
On the Beach Walk, a Heron
His long throat pulses.
His toes arched in sand,
his neck stretching
parallel to the Palms.
The trees make his neck
appear even taller.
He stands for so long a tourist
asks me if he is a statue.
He must be hunting.
See that reach of a beak.
He cranes. Then quiets.
On the far side of the bushes
ground squirrels chatter,
the same squirrels who attended
Yoga the other morning.
while practicing downward dog.
I want the heron to spread his
gorgeous wide wings. I want
the surprise of his rise
into the air, the sparkle
of ocean behind us.
Claudia M. Reder is the author of How to Disappear, a poetic memoir, (Blue Light Press, 2019). Uncertain Earth (Finishing Line Press), and My Father & Miro (Bright Hill Press). How to Disappear was awarded first prize in the Pinnacle and Feathered Quill awards. She was awarded the Charlotte Newberger Poetry Prize from Lilith Magazine, and two literary fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council. She recently retired from teaching at California State University at Channel Islands. For many years she has been a poet/storyteller in the Schools. Publications include Alaska Quarterly Review, Nimrod, and Healing Muse.