Bear

[Terri]

Listen:
There's an old story
that when a child is born -
a bear's child, I mean -
it's a clump of anything.
Its mother must lick and nudge
and paw it into a bear's shape.

Here's the difficult middle passage,
where I need to convince you
without saying it too clearly
that that story means us.

I can't insult you with
a bad metaphor.
How about this:

When I was 20ish
I walked off a roof
(not on purpose)
and even all that healing
all that oh my god and ouch,
weeks of it -
well.

You can really resist
learning for a long while
if you're stubborn,
determined.
You can ignore the bear
(Hi, Mom!)
whuffing and pinning you down
but there she is in the end -

huge, smelly
dark, loved.

[judih]

while we form
containing the insides
a motherly task

[mnaz]

There she is, even the whole bear of earth..

[stilltrucking]

thank you for the poem

"The mother is the first awesome miracle that haunts the child his whole life, whether he lives within her powerful aura or rebels against it."
The Denial of Death. Ernest Becker

[saw]

we often dig in our heels just to be right
we often ignore the big beautiful world
in favor of this myopic tunnel of septic waste
I've seen it a lot in my family...the constriction
to not learn anything new

cool poem...and my comments are streams of thought
not necessarily the gist of your poetry...i will say
I enjoyed it and hope you will keep 'em coming

[Arcadia]

lovely story...! gracias!!!!!!!

[Terri]

i'm terrible at titles
i really wanted to steal shakespeare's stage direction
'exit, pursued by a bear'
maybe some other time
if i'm lucky

thanks for your comments
all those dead-on bullseyes from different angles
i don't write very often but
reading things here and commenting
will be good

[saw]

schools of fish and hard knocks
each hook is baited with bear grease
hoping to catch a mule
isn't it great to know so much
we never need sage condiments
isn't just a hoot to have the perfect shape