David Sheppard

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(The following poem has never been published.)

Elephants and Volcanoes

 There is a room in my life
with four walls, white as ivory.
It is made from elephant tusks.

There is a floor in my room
slick and clean as obsidian.
It is made from the stuff of volcanoes.

There is a ceiling to my room
made to match the walls, an ivory
ceiling that completes the box of silence.

There are no elephants here.
No elephants with large flapping ears
and long searching trunks,

no elephants and no noisy volcanoes.
I have been sent here for correction.
There are no doors. Only walls.

Walls of white ivory with a ceiling
of white ivory and a black obsidian floor
made from the stuff of volcanoes, and me.

There is no door. This
is not a place of refuge. Nor
does the waiting exist in time.
 

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© 2008 by David Sheppard. All right reserved.