for Galway Kinnell and Bobbie Bristol

Because I suddenly think of the bear—

my head jerks up—doesn’t mean the bear

is near. I was here four months before I saw the bear.

Huge exhausted mammal trudged by the porch—it was the bear

Joe told me Sue had seen while she was picking berries.

Male, 500 pounds, the bear

was massive in front, and tapered toward the bare

patch on the furred almost curly truculent rear.

Such a hot midsummer, such a tired bear.

He was like a god—so much space was filled with bear.

Like a cumulonimbus come down to earth—a density of bear

with blood in him, and teeth, and a bear

liver and bear

lights. A pirate bear, a private bear, a lone bear,

it may be a father bear, it is a son bear,

a quarantine bear,

doing the essential work of his life—an endangered bear.

We did not share breath—I was behind the window, and the bear

passed on the other side of the porch rails like a bear

passing through bars of sunlight. And bears

are imprisoned now in smaller and smaller wild jails for bears.

When I stand at a bush now and pick a blackberry,

I wonder how the bear

does it, with his teeth or his bear

claws, which in my youth were bear-

mitt pastries, brown sugar embedded with poppy seeds like the dirt and gore in bear

hands—people were eaten by bears

every summer. My favorite part of this bear

was his velvety golden-brown bear

muzzle. Galway and I were mates, in a way—a friendship that could bear

strong hugs. To me, a male—bear

or human—was an unknown, like my husband, like Galway. I bore

many poems by Galway, and he bore

many by me. Was “The Bear”

a boy? I think so. A human being was male, then. A girl bear

might have seemed too much like a mother—what man then could bear

his mother. I think this song is like a mate for Galway’s “Bear.”

A friend at the end of the world—it is barely

known how long we can go on. A wish for the bear:

pleasure, safe cubs born

and yet to be born; ease of bear

mind; bear

heart’s ease, and a dream of a bear

heaven, hills and woods of comb-born honey.

2

Amherst Balladz

Amherst Ballad 1

Let us Play - Yesterday -

I a Girl - sent East -

Pacific to Atlantic -

Chicago - Betweenst -

Change Stations there - East Side to West -

Betwixt -

Beauty Salon - Big Sister -

Must Have her Hair - Washed.

New England School - Old Mansions -

Everyone a Woman -

Some Sweet - some Noble -

Christian - Jew - Muslim -

Sally - Strome - Faiza -

And Daphne - whose note from Anon -

Waited in my Locker - Who are You?

Are you Nobody too?

One Senior had slept with her Half-Brother -

And the Girl - Dearest to me -