MICHELANGELO'S ELEPHANT

                        I

Michelangelo, my mother would say,

Said every marble block held a figure

Waiting to be freed. I think Michelangelo

Spoke of  his David; my mother, though,

Spoke of an elephant waiting patiently

(Of course) to be discovered so that

Everything that wasn’t it could be chipped away.

A few years ago, looking at a slab

Of Travertine marble that had somehow

Wound up behind a Cobble Hill store

Which called the odds and ends it sold antiques

I saw an elephant looking back.

The owner said it could be all mine

For ten dollars if I would haul it away.

Sculpting is hard and often I’d wonder

What purpose I served as I considered,

Re-considered, chipped, re-chipped, filed, re-filed,

And devoted long nights to polishing,

Wearing a mask lest silicosis

Lay me low so that I left behind

An awkward elephant only half-free.

At very long last, though, the job was done.

I took down my scaffolding and stepped back;

No matter where I stood the elephant

Refused to meet my eye. It was late;

It needs to sleep, I thought; in the morning

It will see the world into which it’s come

And we’ll have a chance to talk things over.

                        II

When young I acquired a totem animal --

A bear. He never told me his true name

But I called him Bruno. We’ve grown distant;

I have a muse who doesn’t much like bears

So I seldom see the two of them together.

Still, every year or two one of us is sure

To visit the other in a dream.

That night, Bruno dropped by in person

He looked well but older than he did in dreams

And was wearing old-fashioned bifocals.

As always, his manners were impeccable;

I brewed a large pot of  herb tea. Caffeine

Made him wakeful. He drank many glasses

A sugar cube delicately poised between his teeth.

After talking of generalities

(His politics are to the right of mine

But not so far that we have to avoid them)

We came to the main topic. “I am,” he said

“No expert on non-carnivorous mammals;

Still, I believe the elephant you have freed

Is not the right one.  It is Indian

“As you can tell from the shape of its trunk

Its fanlike ears, its dry wit. The one you wanted

Was African and had no more sense of humor

Than brave Hannibal himself. No help for it;

When the day comes, as it will, for you to storm

The gates of Hell you will not be the first

To be brought there by the wrong elephant.”