*

An earlier version of this appeared back in January under the title “Kenosis.”

This concludes “Bear Medicine,” which I think of as a single long prose poem or poetic essay in 12 named sections. Thanks for reading.

Forgive me, bears — I can only manage to be invisible for a few minutes at a time. I have seen your tooth-marks on plastic trash in the woods, & how you shred hunters’ blinds, rip down surveyers’ ribbons, & make enormous smelly deposits in the middle of driveways. But I know too that, not being grizzlies, you are no real threat to anyone’s safety. You were never the fierce antagonists of that grinning braggart politician, Davy Crockett. It’s true that one of you followed my mother around a spruce tree one July morning, but when she turned & said get out of here, you did. Forgive us, bears, for standing downwind, still as stumps, for as long as we can while you romp with your littermates or sit enjoying the sunshine. Such encounters are a tonic for us, though I suspect by the way you huff & run when you finally notice us, it isn’t mutual. Some of us would be invisible forever if we could. Forgive us for watching you via den cam over the internet as you sleep, thousands of insomniacs all over the world gazing at our screens, waiting for the first sign of a new birth. Forgive us for freighting your cubs with so much of our yearning for the presence of the wild: dear Faith, dear stubborn Hope.

This hairless cub, skinny & slow as he may be, seems determined to learn. Nothing is too small for his quick eyes, big as a squirrel’s: which types of ants have the choicest grubs, where the tastiest wild calla & jack-in-the-pulpit grow, how to walk down a juneberry bush or shell a hazelnut with the teeth & lips. Though he brings his own food, & thinks we don’t notice when he eats a stray pawful of berries. Always in the rear, he stumbles on river stones & flounders loudly through the fens & thickets. He employs his claws not to dig or to climb but to make scent marks on odd objects, & he will not go up a refuge tree or run from hounds, however loudly our mother urges. He cannot be enticed to play; he’s as bland as the rain. Unlike those others whose shape and scent he shares, he is at least quiet — easy to forget about. He leaves in the evening & returns in the morning. If he were here all night, we might forget what keeps us apart.

The memory of this will stay with her all her life: the tea party with her bears by the light of an enormous moon. She has been sent to bed early so her parents can relax & drink without the endless questions & irritating presence of a five-year-old child. But her best friends are waiting by her pillow. The three confer in thoughts & whispers, soft as moonlight falling on the duvet. The girl gets out the plastic teacups & fills them from the pot with the sweetest of invisible teas. But what to do for biscuits? She grabs a lump of Plasticine from the dresser, flattens it on the windowsill & uses the top of a lip salve tube to cut it into small, round shapes. Since these are moon-biscuits, they bake in an instant. The bears smack their lips & rumble contentment. Downstairs there might be shouting or weeping, but here, under the protective watch of her great bear & her little bear, all is tranquil. They welcome the moon into their circle with open paws.

The slight young woman slips away from her tour group, which has stopped at a remote farmhouse in Guangdong Province to shop for a rare & valuable alleged medicine: bile harvested from the gall bladders of living bears. She has heard such farms exist. Down an unlit staircase she creeps & into a basement filled with foul smells, large dark shapes & the popping of teeth. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, the hair stands up on the back of her neck. She is surrounded by bears, each crammed into a cage so small it can hardly move. There’s a dripping sound. The bears seem to have an extra appendage, a straight cylinder protruding from the abdomen through the bottom of the cage — an iron teat where no teat should be. She feels their eyes on her, smells the fear mingled with feces & disease. Then something taps her right shoulder. She turns & sees a bear’s paw, thrust through the front of the closest cage. Fear surges through her, quickly followed by sorrow. What can she do? A crescent on the bear’s chest glows golden in the midnight of its fur: a moon bear. She grasps the proffered paw & feels a gentle squeeze in response; they lock eyes. She speaks softly: Hello, Bear. Hello. I promise to help. After several long seconds she backs away & storms out, possessed by fury. Moon bears are small but powerful. They & she will eventually become too much for the largest nation on earth to stomach.

*

Donate to Animals Asia to help stop bear bile farming in China and Vietnam and support sanctuaries for rescued bears.

We are the hollow bears, the stuffed bears dancing together, straw headpiece filled with human. We mimic bears mimicking men, blondeface minstrels led about on leashes. The natural order of things is to die & decay; only through levity can the wintry world once more be set to wrongs. But we are also beasts among men, & our needs are bestial. The villagers shriek at our too-hard hugs, get us drunk & kill us, again & again. Like conjurers we pull ourselves from deathly sleep. We rustle, mumble, shuffle, stumble, tussle, tumble, hustle, crumble. All sickness sticks to our honey-colored fur — & so we must burn. Outside the village bounds we return to the wild, flames playing the way we all did once, before pits & chains.

Four-Legged Human, Chief’s Son, Grandfather, Grandmother, Elder Brother, Cousin, Little Uncle, Beloved Uncle, Uncle of the Woods, Good Father, Great Father, Fur Father, Worthy Old Man, Twelve Men’s Strength, Tired One, Angry One, Big Hairy One, Honey Eater, Sticky Mouth, Honey Paws, Broad Foot, Golden Feet, Wrangler, Short Tail, Crooked Tail, Cat-Like Creature, Old Porcupine, Black Food, Big Great Food, The One Who Owns the Chin, The Animal, The Beautiful Animal, Illustrious One, Venerable One, Unmentionable One, God of the Mountains, Owner of the Earth.

Four warriors lie wounded. The leader of the bear dreamers sleeps in a hoop of hide while the sun circles. They wake him suddenly to make him wild, frightened, lost. His canines lengthen. Lying back down he reaches into the earth & extracts bear root. Getting up, he goes in search of a plum tree, grabs it & shakes — a rain of bruise-colored fruit. He circles the camp, bear skin over his head, brandishing a knife. His hands are painted white, his body, red. Bullets cannot kill him, steel cannot cut him, the hidden wounds cannot escape his healing claw. The other bear dreamers follow, singing. The wounded ones stagger to their feet & begin to walk.

It begins with a shiver, a sudden chill. Teeth chattering, the face goes strange, like the map of an unknown country. Not bear, but a bear-shaped terror — the wariness of the perpetually hunted, turning to hyperarousal & an ecstasy of rage. Then steel cannot cut, fire cannot burn, tenderness cannot reach.

And in the aftermath, weak enough to perish in the fair-haired hero’s crushing hug.

From palace to cave: one wound closes & another gapes. It turns out the king’s cattle are horned marauders, a scourge on the land. I cut them open & find shredded leaves, aborted destinies. But when the sun goes down the trees stretch, reclaiming the crofts, & I return to my mountain & to you.

When you saw me bloody in the pens, your fear was only that I would leave you among those bewitched creatures shaped through the ages by human hungers. Here, our desire is like water from a glacier, white with the milk of stones. We remember who we were before furs & fabrics, even before they gave us names & trajectories.

I can get more naked than any other beast. Tomorrow I will lie down in a circle of hunters & let them try to find me in that mountain of flesh. Only your hand slipping under my shoulder will recover the gold ring that, in another story, might’ve pierced my septum. From our union will come wild hunters of men.