Bear Cycle

It must be that in another life I think but do not know who I was

            a stranger to me now but there was a fire a burning down of

 things and in the bars of shadows cast by the flames that very night amidst

            some enormous grief gravel imbedded in my knees was asked by the night

 or something in the night like a hot coal hidden in a blanket like a star

            beneath an eyelid what do you want and I said I thought I wanted this

 earth and all that I have been told it promises the green shoots that harden

            bones the twigs that turn into boards then houses the single tulip

 of love in the shape of hips and thigh what other kiss did you think a man could want?

            and now what? the voice asked and I said ash and I said

 dust this is what everything is made of isn't it and the voice said and what

            else? and I had nothing more to say but that night I leaped

 into the dark and became a bear and lived so ninety-nine lives ninety-nine

            springs awoke hungry as a desert walked on my hands through summer

 devouring everything ninety-nine autumns drowsy on honey and berries

            went down into the cave of my slumber winterless were my dreams and

 now a man again or so I pretend a reprieve nearly half a century perhaps a bit

            longer if lucky and each year especially autumn when the light

 as if spilt from a glass falls to the other side of the earth and the night

            opens its long eyes and snow and ice arrive to inhale in the last

 blade of grass the question returns what else? what else? I have been

            begging the answer have drawn flint across the gash of my raw question

 have wandered house to house body to body occupation to occupation all the

            while wearing the lumbering shadow of a bear not a man's and

 now as summer braces its shoulder northerly I am ready to answer

            something else a third thing but I will not tell it to you

 or anyone (you too have been asked have questions have shapes you must

            carry and be carried by) it is enough that I know will die and live and die

 and live again whispering it the way the earth whispers to seeds quietly and the

                 bear I have been what of it? let it go in peace I say let it go to the place

 where all bears must go.