Goodbye To The Elephants Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[on hearing the elephants were retiring early from Ringling, Barnum & Bailey...]

for Ray Bradbury, and for my sister who I know, remembers the snow cones...

goodbye to the elephants in the circus
old children cried not wanting to see them go
except to Elysian elephantine fields

where they could play in the snow
or slide down the glass hills happily
and when they'd had their fill

be given tubs of hot cocoa
with giant pastel marshmallows
at the vast skating parties

held in their honour.

and I still miss your sand baths
at the zoos and the snow cones afterwards.
how we fed them peanuts and they smiled

their baby elephant smiles, knowing
we were little, too.

this time around may the circuses come to you.
the lady in sparkling pink on the far trapeze
the lime green polka dotted clowns

the lions, making do, and slightly disconsolate;

all as you take your ease
or dream the dreams of the kind;
losing, gradually, from your mind,

and crowned with field flowers sweet!

the memory of sawdust,
under your rumbling feet.

mary angela douglas 11 january 2016