Helen Whittaker
Trunk with love
Inspiration piece

The Elephant in the Room
By Lisa Eldridge
Response piece

I talked to the elephant in the room;
She was painted red and blue.
She spoke to me; well, she might have been a “he”:
Elephants have no hang-ups about sexuality.
(So I’ll say “she”)
And what that elephant said to me I’d like to share with you.

I can’t remember every word she said,
I meant to write it down before I went to bed,
But I forgot: we talked about a lot, but some of it was clear and some was not
(And years ago I smoked a lot of pot).
But the gist of what she said to me, I got,
Though it was more profound than what is in my head.

The elephant and I talked throughout the night.
It seemed important at the time, and it still does.
Our talk shed light on parts of me that don’t feel right.
The point is clear (at least, I thought it was);
I mean, I want to say this without sounding trite;
It meant a lot to me, and it still does: the elephant, her wisdom, and the night.

It had to do with looking at my life (I know I’m not explaining very much),
About how I should think about my life, and was I using
…Something…
As a crutch?
For an elephant she sure was erudite;
She introduced new concepts left and right,
But all of them were personal to me, I mean they fit my life specifically,
As we chatted about truth, and love, and such.

She said it better than I ever could;
I hate to paraphrase for fear of sounding lame.
She told me how to change my life for good:
Something about not craving fame, or everything being a game…
Did she say that all of us are the same?
It’s just not coming back to me the way I hoped it would.

As I have done, or mean to do someday when I have time,
It boils down to looking at yourself…and maybe
Something having to do with fish?
The problem is I started this in rhyme,
Which has not worked out as I might have wished.

See, elephants remember really well,
But I do not, in case you couldn’t tell.
Still, there are elephants in every room,
Whether we acknowledge them or not.
An elephant will teach you stuff, if you are brave enough:
I thank the one I met; I learned a lot.

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