Passages

A Poem by Shaleen Rakesh

The Forest held the morning in green silence,
And the wind carried the fragrance of rain-soaked earth
The city gathered its traffic, voices, restless intentions,
In dreams, a procession of elephants moved through winter lights.

They carry no knowledge of the bridge beneath their feet,
Nor of the children who stopped to watch them pass
Their world measured in familiar scents, the river’s nearness,
And the quiet assurance of another body ahead.

We make spectacles of so much we cannot understand,
Give names to mysteries, draw boundaries around the wild
Yet the elephant owes us neither wonder nor explanation,
and belongs to the earth, older than our stories.

By evening, the Sal leaves stir above the forest road,
The last elephant disappears where the foothills gather mist
A child carries home an image without knowing why,
The great procession continues, beyond the reach of memory.