Bear died standing up, paws on log, howling. Shot right through the heart. The hunter only wanted the head, the hide. I ate her so she wouldn't go to waste, dumped naked in a dump, skinless, looking like ourselves if we had been flayed, red as death. Now there are bear dreams again for the bear-eater: O god, the bears have come down the hill, bears from everywhere on earth, all colors, sizes, filtering out of the woods behind the cabin. A half-mile up I plummeted toward the river to die, pushed there. Then pinions creaked; I flew downstream until I clutched a white pine, the mind stepping back to see half-bird, half-bear, waking in the tree to wet fur and feathers. Hotei and bear sitting side by side, disappear into each other. Who is to say which of us is one? We loaded the thousand-pound logs by hand, the truck swaying. Paused to caress my friend and helper, the bear beside me, eye to eye, breath breathing breath. And now tonight, a big blue November moon. Startled to find myself wandering the edge of a foggy tamarack marsh, scenting the cold wet air, delicious in the moonglow. Scratched against swart hemlock, an itch to give it all up, shuffling empty-bellied toward home, the yellow square of cabin light between trees, the human shape of yellow light, to turn around, to give up again this human shape. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR: 6. A WIFE WAITS by THOMAS HARDY LYRICS TO IANTHE (2). LAMENT by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR THE BATTLE-CRY OF FREEDOM by GEORGE FREDERICK ROOT THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 47. BROKEN MUSIC by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE VACANT CAGE (1) by CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER HOW DOES THE RAIN COME? by CHARLES ROLLIN BALLARD |