bearbones

Signature

 

We’ve seen them too,

the striations.

Those lines in the rocks, glacial grooves cut

mostly parallel

like cambium,

or teeth,

broken here and there by chattered debris.

 

In snow and willow we watch

you kneel, then squat on the wind scoured ridge,

studying the bedrock between gilded drifts

with tracing fingers

free of mittens, following a glacier’s path.

 

Are you imagining the ice that loomed above

this spot?

That was long ago.

But perhaps you can picture it, that rock studded ocean,

slowly buckling and deforming,

carving this channeled signature

in its wake.

 

We all press into this world.

Just last night we hunted hare,

tracking the north meadow with our stories.

You will find them soon, and wonder at our numbers

and at the demise of hares.

This season: is a good time for lynx.

 

We study the snowshoe hare

like you scour these glacial tracks.

Tell us: when will you consider

your own?

You leave them everywhere.

Over and over you run the same pathways,

Here to there.

Here to there.

You no longer react at each firing

synapse,

but reactivity rules your hunt.

Deep

are these channels

of resistance,

worn

are these trails

of patterned thoughts.

 

Resistance cannot grow.

Any hare or lynx can tell you that.

We thrive when they thrive, and

we suffer when they suffer.

As two equal, opposite

forces,

we succeed or fail

together.

 

Don’t misunderstand us.

This trust promises no ease,

only change. And

only change can grow.

 

Rise from these striations, fellow predator.

Make fresh tracks

in your own vast meadow.

You’ve been frozen in place for so long.

Even the glacier moves at the firn line,

in accumulation, and ablation.

Ice knows transmutation in both

growth and death.

You too have a season.

Move with force through this world.

Mind your tracks,

and love what you hunt.

This is how to trust.

This is your signature.