Poem #31: The Midnight Bear

While backpacking with Scott in 1992 in Michigan's Porcupine Wilderness State Park, a black bear visited us during the night. He circled our tent 3 times, sniffing for food. Naturally, food has never been in our tent, but rather bear-bagged in a tree a hundred feet away. Bad news -- the bear found the suspended bear bag. Good news -- he failed to get it down from the tree branch. A neighboring backpacker wasn't so fortunate. We saw the remains of his food bag on the ground the next morning, and I was surprised to see the bear had even ripped open dehydrated food packages and licked the contents out! (Photo is of 2 grizzly bears I took in Denali National Park, Alaska)



The bear,
storied soul and spirit and substance of wildness,
simultaneously revered and feared,
awakened us at midnight --
not unobtrusively like a sleek stealth fighter,
but as raucous as a wide-bodied cargo jet --
deafening, gawky, lumbering,
his off-trail bushwhacking
bear-handling the surrounding underbrush.

He thrice circled our flimsy fabric shelter,
round and round and round us like a zero,
smelling for food, smelling of food,
his breath pungent through the tent material,
reeking and putrid and threatening.

One clawed paw-swipe would shred
our temporary home,
and Fear unlike any experienced, consumed us
as we awaited the bear’s trump to Fate's hand.

Then with a snort he left,
and that night, though relief eventually came,
sleep did not.


copyright 2004 by Chuck Morlock