«
»

The elephant is my spirit animal

The Elephant is Slow to Mate
by D.H. Lawrence

The elephant, the huge old beast,
is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
together, without a word.

So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
hiding their fire.

Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
for the full repast.

They do not snatch, they do not tear;
their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
till they touch in flood.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2012 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “The elephant is my spirit animal”

  1. Alice Says:
    November 12th, 2012 at 11:37 am

    I get your posts a week’s worth at a time, so I hope to be able to keep up more efficiently now. I really like this poem but it escaped my attention all these years even though I read Lady Chatterley (go figure!) 🙂 There’s so much I admire in this week’s post, but most especially your positive attitude. Tin’s still cute as a dickens and I think motherhood is very becoming on you. We should all look for ways to dodge our cages now and then–as you did on the train trip. A good reminder for all of us.

  2. Rachel Says:
    November 13th, 2012 at 11:45 am

    Hi Alice – so great as always to hear your voice. I was just reposting a post from when my mom died and I was in a hotel room in NY and your response was so sweet. Imagine all the things we have been through together – we’ve never met face to face but we have soul to soul? Love, Rachel

Leave a Reply