The Night Bear
Keith E. Nelson
Today, in a countless chain of linked days
we sat, wide open and extremely quiet,
and once again watched the winter sky
fade from delicate orange and pink and grey
into a solemn beautiful indigo
setting off the now-huge mountain ridge
looming ever-closer as it too shifted
from dark grey to shiny basalt,
not quite black.
Then in a quantum blink
more light escaped the sky
and the huge night bear lay down,
swathing the mountain totally in furry black.
Then this night bear too was covered, tenderly,
by a barely visible indigo-violet comforter.
After a bit of very deep sleep,
the sly night bear stretches,
yawns and relaxes all ego,
painlessly surrenders a few of its
gleaming sharp teeth
high into the familiar night constellations,
mere loans until the new morning,
the new, routine, astonishing,
nourishing, emerging cycles.