This post previously appeared at Https://rayzimmerman.substack.com. 

Greetings Earthlings

Bears are on the move because of a population boom. Older males chase young bears, especially young male bears, out of their territories.

A local man’s dog pulled on her leash to get into the woods. A bear of yearling size ran up the trail.

A jogger nearly came face-to-face with a larger bear, still not full-grown.

A disk jockey on a local radio station felt obliged to repeat bear reports from three neighborhoods.

Thanks to multiple reports, those place names are common knowledge. Unfortunately, bears in urban areas either move on quickly or meet a sad fate.

Remember the old saying, “a fed bear is a dead bear.”

I don’t usually repeat the place names of bear sightings, wishing to protect their gall bladders and paws. Poaching is still a big deal in Amerika.

I wish our bears all the luck they will need as they descend into civilization.

Those who came in past years have not fared well. One charged through a soccer game at Miller Park and was later shot by authorities. The bear’s identifying tag telegraphed the phrase, “Repeat visitor.”

Like her namesake companions, the celestial bear is nearly invisible here in winter, near the horizon. Some folklore says she is asleep in her den.

Do bears in their dens dream? I never dream of bears, but I have wandered, would they tell me their secrets then? Some folklore tells of the bear mother, a woman whose half-bear children became great hunters and teachers.

For more information on bear mythology, consult The Sacred Paw: Bears in Nature, Myth and Folklore by Shepherd and Sanders, or They Dance in the Sky by Monroe and Williamson.

On June 5, two fledgling birds played tag among the understory trees. Their raspy calls identified them as wrens. Carolina wrens, they are called, though they range much more widely than the boundaries of those two states.

Soon, the scorpion will rise in the Southern sky. Orion has vanished except for those few hours when he still shines brightly in the west. Folklore and mythology tell us they cannot be in the sky at the same time because of an ancient conflict.

Joseph Campbell would likely say that folklore and myth are the same. For more of that, see his book or video, The Power of Myth.

​Solstice approaches, and baby birds will be grown.

Momentary

The objects of the moment accumulate.
I bought a magazine that looked interesting
until I got it home. I bought a book, 
and it sits on my desk half-read. 
I refuse to throw out the fountain pen 
that never worked.

Some museums collect such objects. 
Their shelves hold pink knitted hats, 
dropped during a MeToo march:
the memories left at war memorials
and effluvia bought at yard sales.

They sit on shelves like poets who
have had their fifteen minutes of fame. 
Our performances are forgotten, 
and our books are half-read. 

The moment turns, and the instant fades.
Today, the sun is warm, and plants
send forth fruits and flowers.
Pollen and nectar assure good seeds,
their message to the future.

​A Special Place

There is a special place in the inferno
for those who design online forms.

The single mother whose public terminal shut down,
just as she finished her employment application,
will dance on your fingers as you dangle from a cliff,
from which you never fall.

If you designed a phone system
to intentionally prevent the caller
from reaching a live operator,
you will forever push buttons
that lead nowhere.

If you have lost
your travel visa for heaven,
please press three.

If you would like credit
for time spent in purgatory,
please press four.

Your call is very important to us.
Please be patient.
All demons are busily assisting
​Other Inferno Bound customers.

Prose Poems
I
 wrote these poems at a meeting of the Tennessee Poetry Society, which included a prose poetry workshop with Anne Fisher-Wirth. I first encountered her poetry in the anthology Elemental South. Fisher-Wirth is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi, and co-editor of Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology

The event was a tremendous opportunity to create some new poems. Fisher-Wirth ended her presentation with the prompt “In That Kitchen.” My response and two other prose poems follow. 

In That Kitchen
I washed the dishes in a sink near the stove where an elderly immigrant prepared the food. Sometimes the owner worked the grill and fed me hamburgers he had overcooked. “Why throw them out?” he’d say.

One day, they were swamped. A waitress asked me if I could make the coffee. I looked dubiously at the machine with multiple glass pots and warmers, and she laughed when I said I had never used that kind of coffee maker before. She said, “Just push that black button.”

So I pushed the button, and hot water poured from four spouts. She hadn’t mentioned the tray that slid under the spouts, the paper filter that went into the tray, or the pre-measured bag of coffee that went into the filter.

I contemplated the clean spot on the floor left behind by the mop and thought of how much easier the percolator on the stove back home must be. I never learned how to make restaurant coffee.


Two Above the Swamp at Curtain Pole Road

You circle and call above the shoreline with wings so light I could think the sun shines through. Each year I see you in pairs, here or at some other sanctuary, where you court by locking talons and fall toward the earth. Soon, eggs will need warmth, and nestlings will need to be fed.

Red-shouldered Hawks, you are Death to mice and voles. Your bodies are fires to consume flesh, and you will feed young fires. They will fly off before they learn to hunt. They will pick off rabbits and mice injured by cars and scavenging roadkill. Sometimes they become roadkill.

Those who survive will turn circles above the swamps and marshes next spring. They will find a partner and a nest tree for another turn of the cycle. Death to mice and voles, you are life to my soul.


Warming Up
​
The trees have stood for years, and chemical messages travel from tree to tree. Each tells the others when bugs attack, so they will make the repellents they concocted over the years of chemical history.

Can they tell the others of fires? It would likely be too late. Some species survive with corky bark, while others burn and make room for others.

Today, chainsaws are warming up. The fire in their engines will spin a blade to chew away bark and heartwood. At the sawmill, they will become boards.

Crochety old man that I am
I experience magic when
Aquatic therapy straightens my spine
Cranes call from skies above
A throng of humans gathers to hear them call
I turn off the latest garbage.com
I am relieved after a doctor's appointment
A peppermint candy melts on my tongue
Carrots grow in my flower pots
I find a thread to gather disparate thoughts
​Into a unified whole