Listen to poem:
Grizzly
Three truant scholars spending our sabbaticals
in crisp Colorado, we all re-read Walden,
dared to drink from streams so icy clear
the fish seemed suspended in mid-air.
Our flimsy nylon shelters shielded us
from what weather there was to worry on,
as summer slipped to autumn
and autumn waned winterward.
Four full years past we trekked those trails
through stands of timber frequented by fox,
by birds, by deer -- and by growling grizzlies.
We walked well-wooded hillsides
of mixed conifers and broadleaf.
In deep drafts we breathed the earthy air.
Now, when my son hugs his honey bear,
red-jacketed, black-button eyed,
I see the hellish maw, the bloodied claw,
of the darkish-brown raging beast
that tore off my arm and maimed
two sages, amid the yellow quaking aspen
where, yet, that gory grizzly ages.
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