Nuits Balneaires, Elephant Memory (Artist Instagram)
In the absence of food, feed on memory:
feet sinking into the silken peat
of the waterhole, hush of mud-seamed faces,
plump tongues glued to the mineral lick,
elliptical ears flapping like fronds.
In the absence of space, forage
for that fragment of wildwood
unfolding slow as October sun,
its knotted tendons of liana
& acacia, sinewed & silvering.
Unyoke yourself from this loneliness,
whose spectral body flattens you
like the harmattan.
Feast on the veined earth
in all its communion:
from its termite skeins
to the deer’s honeyed limbs,
from every smoking copse
to the osprey’s blond oculus.
Imbibe the dreambody
of your father
& the mildewed soul
of your mother —
find refuge there.
Or perish.
Note: CAN was born on January 20, 1992, the day the Cote d’Ivoire’s "Elephants" were victorious over Senegal in the 12th edition of the African Cup of Nations (CAN) football tournament. She survived the post-election crisis, but a few years later, succumbed to an illness.