December Bear

 

Your nape hairs rise 

as the bear saunters near

 

and you drop everything you’re holding

just to see it move 

like water, or your memory of it

a flowing locomotive of shoulders in ink

churning like the night 

or a river, on snow

 

and you wish to call after it

why 

and when 

filling in the answers like a school girl

with a notebook

in your oxbow lake haven, hidden nearby

 

cut off from the current

but close enough to listen

and to recognize what responds

 

in the woolly underfoot,

the snow-dusted ruff,

the nostrils, cloud-steaming

 

so when it dares you to follow

this river of questions

luring you away 

from the bends you have known

 

your curious soul rises

overflowing its banks

and tumbling, it reaches

 

 for the promise of nothing 

in the loving of everything

 

one track 

at a time

like a December bear.