Bear Spirit
Bear
Waddles and battles
A hunger path
In life
She searches the three seasons
In all the crevices and tips of branches
In any well of space that one could imagine
She digs and scratches, prods and pulls
For what might crawl, swim or grow her way
For what might make fat stay
To keep her through the cold one
She is the innocence of a playful child
And the fierceness of the lioness
She is scrappy when its in her way
But only if she has to be
She is the shy and the coward
And the brave and the ferocious
The playful and the bully
She is the guardian
Of her pups
That she sleeps into being
What coldness couldn’t
She teaches what winter can
Putting us inside ourselves
Out of the cold
We grow what was earned
In the other three
To bring about our inner life
The growth that happens inside
She knows that spring through fall
Must be enough
To hold her through winter
And so she grabs as much as she can
And grows as she sleeps
Until her cubs are crawling into spring
And their tradition
For collecting the sleeping fat
Continues
She teaches that winter
Is a time for going inside
And learning what the white isolation Lays bare
It is the winter story of our age
The inside stories of ourselves
LauraLee K. Harris
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