If you come to me at this moment
Your minutes will become hours
Your hours will become days
And your days will become a lifetime
To the Princess of the Elephants I dissapeared exactly one year ago
On that day, I received a letter It called me back to the place where my life with the Elephants began
Please forgive me for the silence between us has been unbroken for one year
This letter breaks that silence It marks the first of my three hundred and sixty five letters to you
One for each day of silence I will never be more myself, than in these letters
They are my maps of the bird path And they are all that I know To be true
You will remember everything All will be as before In the begining of time, the skies were filled with flying elephants
Every night they lay down in the same place in the sky
And dreamt with one eye open When you gaze up at the stars at night You are looking into the unblinking eyes of elephants, who sleep with one eye open To best keep watch over us Ever since my house burnt down
I see the moon more clearly I gazed upon all the Edens that have fallen in me
I saw Edens that I had held in my hands, but let go I saw promises
I did not keep Pains
I did not sooth Wounds
I did not heal Tears
I did not shed I saw deaths
I did not mourn Prayers
I did not answer Doors
I did not open Doors
I did not close Lovers I left behind And dreams
I did not live I saw all that was offered to me, that I could not accept I saw the letters I wished for, but never received I saw all that could have been, but never will be An elephant with his trunk raised is a letter to the stars
A breaching whale is a letter from the bottom of the sea
These images are a letter to my dreams
These letters are my letters to you My heart is like an old house, who's windows have not been opened for years
But now I hear the windows opening I remember the cranes floating above the melting snows of the Himalayas
Sleeping on tails of manatees
The songs of the bearded seals
The bark of the zeebra
The clicks of the sand
The ears of the caracals
The sway of the elephants
The breaching of whales
And the silhouette of the eland I remember the curl of the meerkat's toes Floating on the Ganges Sailing on the Nile Ascending the steps of ****** ***** I remember wandering through the corridors of Hatshepsut and the faces of many women Endless seas and thousands of miles of rivers ...
I remember father to children... ...
And the taste...I remember... ...and the pealing of the peach...
I remember everything
But I do not remember ever having left remember your dreams remember your dreams remember your dreams remember
The longer I watch the Savanna elephants, the more I listen, the more that I open, they remind me of who I am
May the guardian elephants hear my wish to collaborate with all the musicians of nature's orchestra
I want to see through the eyes of the elephant
I want to join the dance that has no steps
I want to become the dance
I can't tell if you are getting closer or farther away I long for the serenity I found when I looked upon your face
Perhaps if your face could be returned to me now, I would find it easier to recover the face
I seemed to have lost my own Feather to fire fire to blood blood to bone bone to marrow marrow to ashes ashes to snow
The whales do not sing because they have an answer
They sing because they have a song.
What matters, is not what is written on the page, what matters, is what is written in the heart.
So burn the letters
And lay their ashes on the snow
At the river's edge
When spring comes and the snow melts
And the river rizes Return to the banks of the river
And reread my letters with your eyes closed
Let the words and the images wash over your body like waves
Reread the letters, with your hand cupped over your ear Listen to the songs of Eden Page, after page, after page
Fly the bird path
Fly Fly Fly
