Fear of Knowledge

I sat in the third row,
the third seat back
and watched Janet Stinchcomb
pass out the Scholastic Science magazines.
Janet was the teacher’s pet,
always selected to be freed
from the prison of the student desk.
That’s why the boys called her Janet Stinkbomb.
We got science magazines because
the school board wouldn’t afford
to hire a science teacher.
On the back of every issue was a picture
of jungle underbrush, or the dead dry grasses
of the veldt, or the reeds of a stagnate pond
and at the top of the page
in arrogant type was a question
that felt like a dare:
CAN YOU SEE THE ELEPHANT?
I looked at those pictures as if it mattered.
I would squint, turn my head away and
then look back suddenly
hoping to startle hidden prey,
just enough to make it move.
Eventually, inevitably I would see the elephant
or the wildebeest, or the Greater Red Musk Shrew
or whatever beast that week was hidden
by the chaos of shadows, leaves, and
dappled sunlight.

I have never forgotten the lesson
of these photos: Once I saw
the elephant, I could never
not see it again.