Bears at Raspberry Time

Fear. Three bears

are not fear, mother

and cubs come berrying

in our neighborhood

like any other family.

I want to see them, or any

distraction. Flashlight

poking across the brook

into briary darkness,

but they have gone,

noisily. I go to bed.

Fear. Unwritten books

already titled. Some

idiot will shoot the bears

soon, it always happens,

they’ll be strung up by the paws

in someone’s frontyard

maple to be admired and

measured, and I'll be paid

for work yet to be done—

with a broken imagination.

At last I dream. Our

plum tree, little, black,

twisted, gaunt in the

orchard: how for a moment

last spring it flowered

serenely, translucently

before yielding its usual

summer crop of withered

leaves. I waken, late,

go to the window, look

down to the orchard.

Is middle age what makes

even dreams factual?

The plum is serene and

bright in new moonlight,

dressed in silver leaves,

and nearby, in the waste

of rough grass strewn

in moonlight like diamond dust,

what is it?—a dark shape

moves, and then another.

Are they ... I can’t

be sure. The dark house

nuzzles my knee mutely,

pleading for meaty dollars.

Fear. Wouldn’t it be great

to write nothing at all

except poems about bears?

Copyright Credit: Hayden Carruth, “Bears at Raspberry Time” from Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991. Copyright © 1992 by Hayden Carruth. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P. O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Collected Shorter Poems 1946-1991 (Copper Canyon Press, 1992)