[Ganesh]

23 January, 2011

I like Ganesh,

Remover of Obstacles--

I love him, even--

the first male diety

I have truly loved

because

he’s an elephant--

He’s not

my absent

temperamental Dad,

or any helpful surrogate--

no,

he is Ganesh,

big & thick & strong,

slow-breathing

calm, steady but

fierce!

Elephants

can move trees,

haul caravans,

trample forests,

but

they eat grass,

nuzzle their young

spray fountains of water from

their trunks.

Ganesh,

you have freed me

from my own

limited God, saying

we do not speak

with the same words but

still I understand you,

still you love me.

It is easier to trust

an elephant

with my problems, easier

to ask & ask

& not feel guilty or

ashamed.

And Ganesh just works away,

tearing up the choking vines there,

digging new trenches for clean water here,

never tiring,

never sighing with

unvoiced complaint.

I am not lounging in the shade--

no,

I am loving him,

watching,

as a child, & when

he pauses to look up & out

at the horizon

I pat his trunk,

run my hands over

his smooth, hard tusks,

feel the roughness of his legs,

touch, gently, his feet.

Then he curls up his trunk

& I lie back,

held in a swing

my hair hanging down

brushing the grass

looking up

at the blue sky as

more & more light

comes through.

-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux