The Trail Companion

Winter 2000

Wild Lit

Bear Following Birds

by Maya Khosla

There's wisdom in following birds.
Yesterday, for example, spring released a bear
through corridors of apple and peach trees
in full-lit bloom.
Her body was rigid
from circling a dark nest of sleep
with her breath -
under a winter whose stalactite teeth
stayed bared, sharp for months,
then loosened, fell off,
and slipped into the ground
to awaken this chorus
of petaled greens and whites
with its seeping, watery call.

The bear hovers, a cloud shadow
darkening the grass in her shape.
Breath whistling warmth,
her eyes follow the cardinals' whirl of pink sparks
towards the honey-dense scent
of a bird-feeder
which she brings down with a clap
(a shower of those sparks flying towards cover),
and bends over to nibble the fat-fired seeds,
to finally fill
her hollow of winter sleep.

Maya Khosla is currently a writer-in-residence with the California Poets in the Schools program. Trained as an ecologist, Maya is interested in the interdisciplinary interaction between restoration, ecology, creativity, and art. Her poems have appeared in Raw Seed Review, Freshwater Poems, and Wild Duck Review, as well as a new poetry manuscript, Edge Effects.

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Note from the Literary Editor

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Circles - Janice Dabney