Bear.

Levine, Mark

    We have a problem, bear.
   Bear with us, will you,
   Won't you, while we scratch our sign
   In the declining pine barrens,
   Grinding our incisors on late-blooming bear grass
   (Orbs).
   We chomped an apple at break of day
   In the dream we had
   Of sustenance in the long unbroken sleep
   Of brain activity.
   It was a pear-shaped apple,
   Bodiless, stricken with daylight,
   As we drowsed, fifty milligrams
   Of slumber upon us,
   Upon the word for us (aberrant),
   In our hairy suit.
   And everywhere the field in which we dug
   Was fertile with forage,
   Spiky primitive shells, and clusters of mashed fruits,
   And the picked-over spires of nearly colorless flowers,
   Ocher, dun, giving off
   Heavy fermenting bronchial sugars,
   As a cloud grew empty over us,
   As a process was slowing down in us.
   For we were
   Fattening into obscurity, bear,
   With our one ripening thought
   Of you (for what you're worth,
   On your rare visits to the surface)
   Secreted in our glands.
   And we were
   Bounding, as in youth, across a muddy inlet
   In a disassembling seasonal
   Light without pigment
   With our lexicon of six or fewer signs;
   A place of beginnings.
   Hungry, pacing, fidgeting,
   Except when we were eating, when
   We had no appetite
   For this feed, who would eat this,
   What would you call this.
   For as Carmelita (our keeper) has pointed out,
   We may no longer occupy our robes,
   For our girth is real, though misunderstood,
   Though our legs are like old bamboo.
   And we stand five-foot-ten, fully extended,
   Which means you must have grown in your absence from us
   To loom above us so,
   Visitor.
   Please do not leave us yet,
   We worry you will neglect
   (As in all things)
   To bury us on waking.