27 July 2020 Into the Naked Forest

Have you ever seen a large wild animal – unexpectedly – filling space like the roar of lava coming down a mountain side. So actual, and yet the stuff of fantasy. “Larger than Life,” as it’s said. For some psycho-emotional reason, we mark such an encounter deeply, primitively, and every – yes, every – time we pass the spot where we saw Sister Bear, Brother Wolf, or God’s Own Eagle, we expect, or at least hope we will have the honor of meeting him/her again because the memory of the corporeal vision is emblazoned in our psyche.

If you are fortunate enough to have frequent encounters like this, well, perhaps the spike in heart rate and the prickles on the back of the neck have subsided. Maybe even gone altogether. Worst case, disdain and annoyance take the place of awe and a sense of a blessing bestowed. Bear, in your compost, is too close to your house for your comfort. Wolf is eyeing your cattle, wandering inside a fence as full of escape routes as “the wall.” Eagle – well, about the only unwelcome trait he has is eating too many fish for the angler’s taste. 

Please read the following poem with the above in mind. Decide for yourself what such encounters mean for you, using the Explorations below the poem.

 

Into the Naked Forest

 

Loping across the Forest Road

                                                no complicated moral code

                                    Exquisite danger

                                                and the Brown Bear

                                                            fishing from the pebbled patterns

                                                                        at the border of the burnished stream

                                                fur dripping the smell of pink fish gasping

                                                silver slivers of fishbones cracking

                                                            delicate as filigree

                                                                        heads tossed high without bodies

                                    Naked becomes those of fur and fin

                                    They hold no dread of what’s within

                                                the unshriven, unholy, sunken places

                                                            on the shores of the great unknowing

                                                            lie the patterned places stone on stone

                                                            no one under the canopy breathes alone

                                    Forest floor burdened by eight-inch paws

                                                            padding certain

                                                                        hidden by the pine trees’ curtain

Feet a-feather              wings of clay

                                    Bear throat asunder has her say

                                                stuffing pink to red by degrees

                                                            pillaging the finned nation

                                                                        addressing suffering’s cessation

Background

Yes, I had an encounter with a loping Bear less than a mile from our log cabin on River Forest Road. She was quick and out of sight in a few moments, yet she inspired the above poem. If only she had stayed longer.

Exploration #1: How did you picture the bear in the poem? Black? Brown or Cinnamon? Kodiak or Grizzly? Large ears or small? Graceful or lumbering? Any idea why you filled in the details the way you did?

Exploration #2: Assuming you have seen a large, wild animal, recall your reaction(s). Fear? Awe? Blessed? Angry? Angelic? Fated? Cursed? Visited by your totem animal? Why did you receive the image the way you did? 

Exploration #3: Standing Bear. Red Hawk. Crazy Horse. Sitting Bull. Black Hawk. Red Jacket. Touch the Clouds. One Who Yawns (Geronimo).

The names of famous Indian leaders and others not infrequently took their appellations from the world of impressive creatures. Any ideas why?

If you were to give yourself such a name, what would it be? Many years ago, the name I received was White Raven, so to this day the Raven is my totem animal, a guiding spirit as it were.