Not By Joy
was I surprised, but by a black bear
that raised its head from snuffling blueberries,
not to glare, but to gaze into my frozen stare,
wet-piggy eyes neither mean nor friendly
that seemed unfazed by biting flies
sucking their circumference of red, wet rims.
Indeed, a halo buzzed about his dusty head,
viscous drool dripped off his purple jowl.
(Yes, a he, for there I saw his wispy sheath
and balls as he lurched into a crouch.)
So slowly, slowly I backwards stepped,
step by step, giving up the patch
I’d tended for my own by ripping out
sweet ferns and spruce saplings
that burgeon like proprioceptive joy
from clear cut waste. In sincere truth,
as I slipped into sweat-cooling shade
under great white pines on the slope
down to the cold dark stream
toward home, picking out warm berries
from leaf and twig trash barely covering
the bottom of my coffee can, I felt
a secret gladness for the bandit bear,
not because our eyes locked
in some vestigial bond as fiction done for art
so often sighs, but because I loathed
sticky, stinging work that seemed pleasure
once when done together, but done
alone now only seems like wasted labor
done only not to waste.
that raised its head from snuffling blueberries,
not to glare, but to gaze into my frozen stare,
wet-piggy eyes neither mean nor friendly
that seemed unfazed by biting flies
sucking their circumference of red, wet rims.
Indeed, a halo buzzed about his dusty head,
viscous drool dripped off his purple jowl.
(Yes, a he, for there I saw his wispy sheath
and balls as he lurched into a crouch.)
So slowly, slowly I backwards stepped,
step by step, giving up the patch
I’d tended for my own by ripping out
sweet ferns and spruce saplings
that burgeon like proprioceptive joy
from clear cut waste. In sincere truth,
as I slipped into sweat-cooling shade
under great white pines on the slope
down to the cold dark stream
toward home, picking out warm berries
from leaf and twig trash barely covering
the bottom of my coffee can, I felt
a secret gladness for the bandit bear,
not because our eyes locked
in some vestigial bond as fiction done for art
so often sighs, but because I loathed
sticky, stinging work that seemed pleasure
once when done together, but done
alone now only seems like wasted labor
done only not to waste.
