Cherry Gobbler

Art: Mark Collins
https://markcollinsfineart.com/

If you live where bears live, like I do,

you learn to look up to them. That is to say

that you learn to respect them, yes. But

it is also to say that you learn that they

are up there, high in the canopy, on thin

limbs, fattening themselves on sweetness.

Once I was hiking on a mountain ridgetop

and a cherry tree, it seemed, threw four black

bears at me: a momma and her triplets. Crash,

bang, boom, and boom again. It seemed like

a ridiculous moment and, so, I laughed as

they scampered away in great bewilderment

of my sudden, and it must have seemed

dangerous, arrival.

I called out: “If you’d stayed in the tree, I

wouldn’t have known you were here!” It

seemed like they needed to be informed

of the obvious.

And, so, that was the moment when I learned

to look up to bears.

© 2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From a book collaboration in progress with artist Mark Collins

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