Day 4

For today’s prompt, write a poem about finding something unexpected. Maybe it’s a note from a friend or a bag filled with money (or guns). Maybe it’s finding a lover with someone who’s not you. Or finding a secluded place to sit in the middle of the forest and think.


Before Canada


I'm surprised how quickly it happens:
There is a black bear now
big in his world but small in mine
alone, of course working his way
over my down comforter
that is white like a too-early snowfall
and is cold between his relaxed
black claws, the cold
telling him to hurry


He stops for a moment to test time
the end time of seasons
and the tilting wind
where the blankets fold down 
slope
into the valley of broad, open sheets


It will take him an hour or so to reach the pillows, 
piled high - fantastic mountains
but there, somewhere in there,
he will enter the dark crevasse
find the cave
that is near where I will lay my head
where my head
(through tunnels of darkness) later,
past him there curled, will widen
just enough
on the other side into a glow
we share


dreams


animal dreams


Already there is a bear afoot in my world
I will stay up for a bit
and give him time
to find a place that is right
for his long slumbering winter.