December Bear

My nape hairs rise as the bear saunters near
and I drop everything
to watch it move

like water, or my memory of it, unfrozen, as in spring,
a flowing locomotive in shoulders of ink
churning like the night, or a river, on snow

and I wish to call after it: Why? And where?
I’m a schoolgirl with a notebook, watching the woolly
foot-bottoms, the snow-dusted ruff, the nostrils, cloud-steaming

heart-daring me to follow after the promise of nothing
in the loving of everything,
one track at a time, like a December bear.