Week 5: TRACE

The Bear, Michael Sowa

All the layers and routes of connection, back through time, that we bring to each new image, each new encounter...

Here's a poem in connection. It's from the 1970s, I believe--by David Fisher. The backs-and-forths between worlds have always meant a lot to me--and (as with so many things) seem even more meaningful today...

(The painting  is by German artist Michael Sowa. His children's book, Esterhazy, would fit well here, too. But somehow I'd say that David Fisher's poem is very American. )

_____



The Bear
David Fisher

Thrown from the boxcar of the train, the bear
rolls over and over. He sits up
rubbing his nose. This must be
some mistake,
                        There is no audience here.
He shambles off through the woods.

                *               *                 *
The forest is veined with trails,
but he does not know which to follow.
The wind is rising, maple leaves turn up
their silver undersides in agony, there is a
smell in the air, and the lightening strikes.
He climbs a tree to escape. The rain
pours down, the bear is blue as gall.

                  *               *                 *
There is not much to eat
in the forest, only berries,
and some small delicious animals
that live in a mound and bite your nose.

                   *               *                 *

The bear moves sideways through a broom straw field.
He sees the hunters from the corner of his eye
and is sure they have come to take him back.
To welcome them (though there is no calliope)
he does his somersaults, and juggles
a fallen log, and something
                      tears through his shoulder,
he shambles away in the forest and cries.
Do they not know who he is?

                    *               *                 *
At last he is content to be
alone in the forest,
though sometimes he finds a clearing
and solemnly does his tricks,
though no one sees.