The Friday Poem on 01/04/22
We chose Lorna Dowell’s beautiful poem ‘Elephants’ to be this week’s Friday Poem because not only does it feel relevant to events in Ukraine, it also stands as a poem of grief and compassion for us as a species. We love how sound weaves through the poem, how Dowell manages to convey a profound sense of loss, and that so much is said in so few words. It’s evocative, deeply felt, and expertly crafted.
Elephants
at heart we’re all elephants
compelled to cluster over the bones
of our lost kind we’re all kin
when it comes to grieving
though some choose to forget
how we fall silent
when crying how we paw
at a carcass touching
the dust left behind trying
to smell to remember to grasp
an absence a presence
we can identify
