Hunting the White Elephant
(Vaskar's mad uncle speaks)
White elephant
Golden lotus curled
around him in the temple pond
The people worship the white elephant
in the land of the long cloud
If there is one such rare creature
in the whole world
Why there must be another
Let's go search it
Let's suffer rainforest and leeches
Let's suffer heat and bloodletting
Let us not faint at our own daring
Let's search for the white elephant
The golden lotus
The temple tank
The pond
Maya dreamt a white elephant
and gave birth to the Buddha
The jewel in the lotus / The thunder in the bolt
In the rains the elephant gets love drunk
He bellows and he trumpets for his mate
After rutting he is calm / Who'll cage him?
Who will bring this wild beast home?
He's already home
Overcoming us in our dreams
He is trapped there and kept
Real as the cloud the rain the temple pond
I caged one and bred one on a page
Now there's one for my son too
As the white elephant is a family heirloom
going down into our blood
from mad fathers to sane sons.