Coral Hull: Poetry: The North Woods: The Bears Have Gone Into Hibernation

I MACKENZIE KNIGHT I A CHILD OF WRATH A GOD OF LOVE I FALLEN ANGELS EXPOSED I

CORAL HULL: THE NORTH WOODS
THE BEARS HAVE GONE INTO HIBERNATION

A threatened black bear cub runs quickly up a tree by hugging it, the mother climbs as well, aspens are the getaway trees, in aspen groves black scratches scar trunks, vertical markings at the base are territorial warnings, horizontal marks that go up into the trees are caused by rapid ascents, silent, but vocal when agitated, mostly the bear is trying to get away, to do foresty things, to eat the berries, grunt and growl, bears make a purring sound when content, when a bear is content so is the valley, the mid June forests are humming with contented black bears, dropped branches are growing sweet fruits, sun warms the dark hides, big pads and hips pass by the brambles and fruit bearing flowers, there are abundant berries for flower-eaters, after digesting twenty thousand calories a day, the giant bear sleeps, then it is late summer, the sun goes further and further back behind the trees, until the branches stand in the skin on their own, in naked retreat, the sun sinking so low it barely crawls up the bark the next day, when that cold weather comes in early November, the bears move up the slopes as fat as a foothill, to old sub alpine elevations, where the snow will be deep and powdery, this season is an expert at inducing the long white sleep, snow insulation keeps the den a few degrees below freezing, during the coldest dormant winter, cubs are born like puppies, while the mother hibernates, the birth is a soft entry into the snow, pink noses and tiny paws climb onto the mother's lumbering body over the snow buried branches, the bears burrow in a metre of two, the coldest weather has arrived, the time when the green blue sky is dominated by creaking branches solid with ice, frozen mountains and a sun the size of a coin, the pale lamp shines coldly out, sending us its low silver warmth, each bear has dug out a simple shelter, among boulders under an overhanging bank, or among the snowy roots of a wind thrown tree, but they retreat only if the soil is hard frozen and the rocks are frozen into it, so that they don't detach, so that you cannot kick them out with you boot or scratch them out with your nails, then it is time to leave the earth to freeze, when the snow goose and the caribou leave, then so must we, to sleep for a long time with the great brown bears, who pile up brush and fallen trees to hibernate, a heart rate is slowing down in the mountain ranges, a body temperature lowering itself into peace, follow the bear that is heavy with rest and the dull light of the sky into dormancy, into the time when the scratch marks on the trees are filled with starry hoarfrost, the paths are silent and the sky is flightless, the pathways of the sky are empty of birds, the last ravens call out the snow from signposts, then flying through it like sun thieves, wings like car windscreen wipers at regular intervals, this land is long frozen and waiting for meltwaters, the bear's nose is thinking snow.

    

This website is part of my personal testimony that has been guided by The Holy Spirit and written in Jesus' name.

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