Great Bear

When the day pours down in a silken glaze
   the great bear walks up
      and up each milk-white step of noon

leaving the restless woods
   and her green cave of weeds
      emptying her pockets of berries, roots, and grubs

climbing past the crows in the lemony air
   above the hornbeam and chestnut oak
      between cloud and mountain.

She slowly shakes aside the heavy rug of her fur
   and muscle of her body
      letting go

memories of grievous winters
   boom and howl of the wind and weight
      of each cub, before it was born

wending up the stairs of the night chorus
   into the embrace of grandmother sky,
      with bones as light and fierce as polished suns.

I tell you this so you won't be surprised
   if the scent of pine sap drifts down
      with milkweed, and memories of wild fat summers—

if you too
   are stretched out in the field watching
      for the rise of the great mother.

Remember your enchantment:
   every day is a doorway
      every moment is the world revealing itself.

Death is not waiting at the end,
   but is here, vibrating with promises
      of wider horizons and songs in different languages.

We are not waiting, but are
   constant and becoming as we climb
      listening for

learning what the river wants
   and how the plants became healers—
      letting go of our bodies

slowly, carrying nothing else into
   the black and silver night
      but the great shining we came from, and are.

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Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019) and Wolf Laundry (2020), and she has new poems out or forthcoming in American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, Jam & Sand, The Writer’s Cafe Magazine, Cabinet of Heed, and Front Porch Review, among others.