Fear. Three bears are not fear, mother and cubs come berrying in our neighborhood like any other family. I want to see them, or any distraction. Flashlight poking across the brook into briary darkness, but they have gone, noisily. I go to bed. Fear. Unwritten books already titled. Some idiot will shoot the bears soon, it always happens, they'll be strung up by the paws in someone's frontyard maple to be admired and measured, and I'll be paid for work yet to be done -- with a broken imagination. At last I dream. Our plum tree, little, black, twisted, gaunt in the orchard: how for a moment last spring it flowered serenely, translucently before yielding its usual summer crop of withered leaves. I waken, late, go to the window, look down to the orchard. Is middle age what makes even dreams factual? The plum is serene and bright in new moonlight, dressed in silver leaves, and nearby, in the waste of rough grass strewn in moonlight like diamond dust, what is it? -- a dark shape moves, and then another. Are they . . . I can't be sure. The dark house nuzzles my knee mutely, pleading for meaty dollars. Fear. Wouldn't it be great to write nothing at all except poems about bears? Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME by SIDNEY LANIER DAY: MORNING by JOHN CUNNINGHAM VITAI LAMPADA by HENRY JOHN NEWBOLT GIRL TO SOLDIER ON LEAVE by ISAAC ROSENBERG SONNET: 106 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR THE BRIDE AND GROOM by WILLIAM EDWARD ADAMS |