I broke away from work to attend the dedication ceremony for my neighbor Mark Benkert’s new memorial sculpture to the Aliso Street Bear (a.k.a “Elliot”). In introducing me to read the poem I wrote dedicated to the bear, Mark also mentioned something remarkable about the process of sculpting the memorial. For both Mark and I, […]
I am not the only one for whom the bear seems to have left an indelible imprint. Each morning this week, when I step outside my door to go to to work, I see the silhouette of a bear in the pine tree just across the street. It looks just like him. But it is
I never post new poems on my website. But this piece came through me this morning, and I want to offer it up to our grieving community. To the Bear in a Neighbor’s Tree How quickly we become accustomed to the light, blinking through discomfort, standing upright, when our claws break, we fashion tools, use
When my English wife first came to this country, she was eager see North American wildlife. “I want to see a raccoon,” she said. Soon after, we found ourselves in Yosemite, watching a family of raccoons collecting and munching stray Cheetos, orange paws aglow in the moonlight. “I want to see a sea otter.” At
