Hiking
in the Beartooth range
we fasten bells to our packs.
Tattered lodgepole pines
betray a bear's territory.
We sing loudly. We look for fresh sign.
Later, picking blueberries,
a figure in a shaggy black coat
angles into my vision.
It is not a portly man
as I, for a split-second, thought.
The dog heckles it off.
Bears. The gypsies
taught them to dance
on a bed of hot coals.
The bearleader
striding into a village. The bear
with a ring in its nose.
Jugglers and musicians,
women in gaudy skirts
and gold bangles sweeping through the dust.
The bear jigging its mockery of joy
while tambourines shake and coins shower.
Bears.
They swagger into campsites
looking for coolers.
Their little pigeyes
red and vicious. They
swing their snouts
savoringly over garbage.
Thirteen people have been killed
by grizzlies in Glacier
in the last decade. Mostly
they were asleep in down bags
or making love. The mutilated women
were menstruating--this could be a factor.
Smell of blood. Smell of sexual
activity.
The killer bears
traditionally sows with cubs
or old crippled males
are getting younger and bolder.
One theory: cubs who observe their mother
driving off humans, will imitate her behavior.
A full-grown grizzly
can break a moose spine with one blow.
Separate a man's face from his skull
easy as filleting a trout,
drag a screaming woman
through the woods for miles.
A child wakes up screaming.
All he can tell you is bears
bears. He is beyond comfort.
At last his whimper
ebbs., he snuggles into his pillow,
the light goes off, the door closes,
he sleeps
hugging the bear to his heart.
Bears. In the old stories
their skins fell off.
A prince stood silhouetted against the fire
with the spell lifting. All it took was love.
Tomorrow
