Bear Sighting

Finally happened.

I know you're supposed to stay away from bears...
but we were kinda excited so we ran toward it.
For pictures.
I will post them when I can.

Coarse and shiny black,
His coat seemed heavy
as it rolled with lumbering
paw steps.
Muzzle of gold,
he panted throught it.
Saw us and ran...
and didn't seem so heavy any more.
He nimbly bounced over the grass, head up...

right toward the softball field where Jenn was about to sit down and enjoy a cigarette.
A shriek and a rather impressive fence hurdle later,
Jenn was standing on top of Brittany's car
yelling if the bear was gone yet.

Sorry bout that Jenn.

After a few days and a few mischievous bear visits,
the head chef made an announcement as follows:
Now we all know there's been a big black bear hangin around,
so lets step up the cleaning
and try to clear the outside grill as best we can.
We don't want any incidents with the guests.

I love working in a place where "bear safety" is an agenda in staff meetings.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I drank a Fernet con Coca at a bar in Montana.
The taste,
bitter sharp and herby.
The buzz,
heat emitting vines crawling up arteries to flower in my brain.

The whole experience was an amputation.
I was in Argentina again,
but all I could see were cowboy hats and glowing gridirons above them.
I was suspended between two times and two places.

I am no stranger to the paradox of position:

The most random insignificant stimuli
feeling rather ambitious
passes through its choice of my sensory organs
and arrives in my brain.

This is where most good little insignificant stimuli
are assigned a predetermined meaning and promptly shelved.
Not our little rabble-rouser.

Yelling "stick em up"
He holds up my Memory Bank
and high tails it
to the forefront of my consciousness.
Where, after an epic gun battle,
our outlaw goes down in a fiery ball of glory...
spilling his stolen memories before my eyes.
Becoming a legend.

This is why a smell,
rice ready for harvest.
A laugh,
forced guffaw or tinkling cascade.
A sight,
setting sun glint on the tiny-veined wings of millions of insects in a grass field...

Can each hijack my static here-ness
to another time and place.
No one can see when this happens.
You can never be prepared for it,
You can never force it.
but you can ride it.

And so I call myself wind...
with my brothers and sisters like me.
We are always going somewhere.