What I learned as a bear

I. 
this is what I have learned from being a bear:

that I will move toward

the trap every time, even after the mangled

foot like a broken star

the buckshot-stung leg the scarified nose

a taste of honey is irresistible.

the instinct is this: to roar like a tuba

to bite the trap

to rip off the offending paw

and leave it as a dark fuck you

to the hunter. I have learned this as a bear.

I have also learned why there are no

three legged bears. 


II. 
one would think, so the mind

now human slippery and clever

avoid the trap, bargain with the hunter

or disappear into the forest of

wild honey and shadows that close

like wombs around the old hunger

or seek out the red stag that will

drive its tines in my flesh for why not

at least meat, rich, red, is worth

the suffering honey will not quench.

this is what I have learned from being

human. I have also learned

that at the end  of running 

and struggle I will look into the 

glass of my brown eyes and see 

a three legged bear.


III. 
there is more, if you can stand

the thought of it. wait a moment.

settle down into the long

winter of your thoughts

digest the fat of your longing

go deep into the slow dreams that

will teach you. wait. listen

to the snowflakes touch

their small sensitive feet on this

quiet earth.


IV. 
and now, if I am at last

awake and ready:

I will admit finally

how every square inch of earth

is honey how every square inch

of earth is trap how the two

love each other like salsa dancers

love hips. there is no escape

that is escaping enough there is

no bargaining that is bargain enough

there is no anger shattering enough

there is no sorrow drowning enough

to wash this pattern away. what then

knowing this I put it to

you my trap, my honey

and I yours: what will we

be to each other now sad-eyed bears

or clever human beings

or something else. to enter

the trap willingly not drugged or howling

to move as quiet as oil through the

rust on its mechanism together

parts of a whole. there is no greater love

no shattering more complete. 


V.

a constellation was placed in the sky

to lead us beyond forgetting

when we have forgotten. a bear, a hunter.

to see it as two parts is to become lost.

the pattern was carpentered of light

by the Makers of Light. in the end

there is no pattern and the light,

the blessed light, is everything.