Black Bear Here

It wasn't more than a couple hours after waking up in my primitive cabin on my first full day in Eagle River, Alaska, that three bears -- Mama and her two second-year cubs -- came sauntering by my window. The next two days I spied other bears on the trail and on the land, and wrote a poem. Yesterday I was editing it at Jitter's Cafe, when one of my vision quest co-guides called me to tell me about his recent questing experience on the East Coast. He shared that for the first time in his life, he had seen one of his "power animals" in the wild that had never visited him in the flesh: a black bear. I was so excited hearing his profound story, I forgot to mention that I was editing a poem at that very moment about a black bear. 

When questers return from their solo, it is the role of the guides to mirror their story back to them. Often that "mirroring" is a poetic or mythical reflection of the significance and transformational elements of their spiritual and material journeys. I love the synchronicity that a poem came to me that poignantly reflects my co-guides experience (and of course, my own) even before he told me his story. I hope this will inspire you, the reader, to pay attention to the wildness outside of you, and within! 

Black Bear Here

There is something about the crackling 

of branches, the sway of green, the parting 

of the grasses; the two dark triangles 

poking up from the sea of Devil’s Club 

like miniature shark fins synchronized in swim.

When she sashays onto the path, her black 

eyes meet mine, blue; the bruise between us heals.

Lightening strikes itself. In between the push and pull

of fear and love, from the cave emerges hope.

She’s only going about her day, like us.

I wonder if the chalky sound of shoes on rocks 

and the danger of our vicious possibilities 

thrills her into awareness, too? 

We only worship light because it leans 

up against the darkness.

We only cherish life when death is panting 

and rubbing up against our trembling thighs. 

We only belly laugh when the relief 

that nothing worse can happen rises up 

as phoenix from the ashes of our grief

into the revelation that we stalk the

fabled beast to encounter ourselves. 

Do bears chuckle like people and parrots? 

I have heard them cry 

when they think no one else is listening.