In my February 7th post I shared stories of my wild neighbors, "Otters & Ravens & Bears (maybe?!)". Well, the question mark can now be edited out of the title. The morning before last I was out for a stroll along the pond's edge when I came upon the "calling card" of some nocturnal visitor. I'll spare you photo-evidence since it was the sizable scat of some clearly sizable animal. And when I took the path past the barn to the upper pond, there was another "deposit". Other than the chance that my neighbor's dog had snuck across the road and that not very likely, my suspicions were quickly aroused. Back inside I fired up my laptop for an internet search of "black bear scat" (750,000 results via Google in 17 seconds...a wonder in itself!). Within a few short minutes I had confirmation that a black bear had most certainly paid Lightspring Glen a visit during the night. How incredible to think that while I slept, such a wonderful creature came by within mere yards of my bedroom window!
Just a few days before I'd received an email with Mary Oliver's poem, "Spring" accompanied by a beautiful photo of a bear. Smitten as I always am with her poetry, I'd been reading the poem aloud to myself and loving the images her words conjured. Perhaps I had manifested this Visit? Just maybe, and that makes me smile all the more.
Spring
Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
all day I think of her --
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.
~ Mary Oliver ~
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