And I’m reminded in the poet’s waking dream of my encounters with bear, especially that one little sophomore whose gaze I held long in the wood; both of us straining against our conditioning: His/hers to be afraid of this one in human form, to make tracks and distance between us; mine to respect the politics of a different species as taught to me by my own, to be wary a small bear for the mother that might be nearby and less trusting than her cub, who is tugged by the same thread of curiosity and camaraderie that stretched my own heart toward his, tugged my very tongue toward the taste of his coffee rich fur.

We lingered long in a brief cloud of timelessness. I could feel, almost see, him swaying in the tug of war, toward and away from me; the undertow of instinct and the possibility of transcending it. I felt those tides too. And I watched them ripple in the space between us until eventually he gave in, gave weight to the foot in bear corner and lumbered off, in no hurry now the decision was made.

I could begrudge him nothing. He would forget before I; harbor no regret. But he instructs me every time I notice myself hesitating in the undertow of conditioned instincts, and I flare my nostrils to tune into the inconceivable possibilities rippling in the air between the old identity and the new.

I try not to begrudge myself all the times I have leaned back into bear corner, chosen the cave.

I know also the rightness, the exhilaration of leaning into the other foot and standing taller and truer, inside and out, with the next step.

Today we thinned my hair,
lightening the weight on my spine.
We trimmed my bangs,
lightening the fog in my mind.
But it was only the witness of a friend
who needed alter nothing
that lightened the weight on my heart,
draining its swamp of tears
in this time of not knowing which way to step.
I sit in the dim, like Mary Oliver,
waiting, hoping. Content,
but for not knowing for what I wait, whether it will come
and whether I will recognize it when I see it.
Silly creature. Deer little bear.

How could you not know your self?
How could you not know God?