Elephants in the wild
have been known,
          upon recognizing the white bones
          of an elephant they knew,
to linger, to rummage in those bones,
          with delicate movements of foot and trunk.

We don't know, (as usual, they maintain their steadfast silence)
but we think we see
sorrow in them,
and we include them in the group of God's creatures
          who know the pain of mourning.

                     ________________________

Today, traveling to D.C., visiting the museum of the Holocaust,
          I am as speechless as an elephant in the wild upon recognizing my dead;
          then I ache to tell those around me:
                      "That's me, there I am in that photograph,
                     that is me, there, stiff and horrific."
My animal instinct begs me to walk into the displays,
          to rummage in the shoes of the dead,
          to put on the prisoner's rags,
          to place my passport under glass
                     and enter the photographs, where,
                     if any belong, so do I.

                     __________________________

Driving to our concert,
          I see wild ducks, swimming,
          somehow reconciled to the world.

Ages ago,
          we cowered before God,
          then argued with God,
                     argued about God,
          and now, we hardly bother.

Can the ducks,
          who never bothered,
          possibly tell me what I need to know
                     to keep swimming, to keep going?

I open my flute case backstage,
          and there, in velvet, a case of bones--
          three silvery white bones that I put together for my flute,
          two small time-blackened bones of a child,
                     as light as hollow wood,
                     my piccolo.

In prehistoric times, flutes were made of bones,
          eagle, bear and human,
          emptied of marrow
          and blown to make who knows what sound.

Tonight, on stage,
          to ease my misery,
I consecrate my flutes as the bones of the dead,
          and all night I make them ring and ring,
like a wild elephant howling over the huge tusks of its dead,
                                for no purpose,
                                just ringing.