Bear

Standing, leaning, with both long-

clawed paws she rips punk

wood out of a tree with

a high hollow to get

at her cause inside—her sharp brute

parentheses tear at the living

humming word. The honey

the tree has helped the bees

hide has drawn her near with

its scent. Forcing the issue,

she’s heavy, off-balance, intent.

Flying defenders of the sweet

they’ve produced and on

which they and their larvae

depend, the bees swarm her

nose, her eyes, her tongue, her plan,

often they trace with their hovering

the lying-down eight of infinity

before they sting and fall

mortally self-wounded.

Yet always in this valor they fail

to defend—and who can succeed?—

the whole history of poetry.