For Jonathan

The day the circus came I saw

The trackless veldt in Iowa

Where strung on the familiar hill

Elephants profiled trunk to tail

Bringing the circling vultures down

Greedy for jungle carrion,

Causing exotic snakes to hiss

Angrily in the sunburnt grass,

Transforming the midwestern trees

Into a single vast trapeze

For monkeys. In one freckled elm

A leopard dozed upon a limb;

It seemed to me his leap might flush

The lion from the underbrush

Edging the fair-grounds.

On that day

The unimaginative sky

Of Iowa enlarged until

The elephants came down the hill

Lumbering dumbly tail to trunk.

As once more the horizon shrank

To ordinary size, they went

Docilely to the circus tent.