MAMILLA POOL
Brambles hamper
access to the ancient reservoir.
The pool—agape
and empty, dried to stone.
The impulse was to save.
The one hard lot was in the ground.
We wanted fresh pool-water,
in the months of hottest heat
we wanted mainly to be slaked;
pay attention;
pray. If praise
could fill the pool up,
it would be a reservoir again.
If praise would
…………………… alter fate ~
We came here in the hottest heat
with water in our bottles,
sat on cool and crumbling steps
concealed from clamour in the streets,
heard echoes:
lowing family animals,
mothers cupping their hands & bathing
their babies in common waters, frogs:
these sounds drowned out
by bright green parrots shrieking
into the trees. Who knew we’d rise
to swooping birds, pursue them
out of the past of the pool. The shrill,
bombastic squawking: so unmusically
sure and true.
Author’s Bio
Elana Wolff is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and designer and facilitator of social art courses. Her poems and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in Canadian and international publications and have garnered awards. Elana’s fifth collection of poems, Everything Reminds You of Something Else, was released with Guernica Editions in 2017.