ceramic artist unknown
ELEPHANT
CHRISTMAS
by Sharon Auberle
The
first year
you
set out the elephants
I
smiled at their scarred
and
broken bodies, but
the
tenderness with which
you
touched them
took
my breath away.
I
wanted to hold you
till
being grown-up disappeared,
and
we were little kids again,
watching
your parade of elephants
marching
under the Christmas tree,
bodies
unscarred, trunks raised in glee,
trumpeting
their way to Bethlehem
And
every year, in every house after,
out
they came from their battered boxes,
the
old gray line joined by new ones:
blue
and amber and black ones,
fierce
old warriors and tiny-tusked babes.
Every
year the elephant parade grows
and
every year comes
the
same look on your face
as
you set them under the tree,
as
you return to that soft place
where
no one is allowed to enter,
except
a small boy and girl,
noses
pressed against the window,
watching
the passing parade.
~ first appeared at Mimi’s Golightly Cafe
