SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: THEY WERE BEARS
From THEY WERE BEARS
By Sarah Marcus:
PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN BEARS
You said you were afraid of bears—
we weren’t safe until there was ice
along the shoreline. I said we all need trauma,
and my heart breaks every Autumn, so we broke
ourselves against those rocks until the cave mouth opened:
a womb for blind crayfish,
a passageway harboring beetles.
I want you to reach into the depths of your backwoods
and remember our Winters. We need the bears, ourselves
ursine sleeping in dens—the caverns drip-stoned and stunning.
I was and still am in search of a great bear
because people have always known bears—
we will always be shelter for each other.
When we first met, I told you that a long time ago,
grizzlies came down from the Rockies—
they were poisoned on the range, trapped,
hounded, shot out—we found cranial fragments.
We still listen…
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