A Wild Surmise

The Real Bears Have Gone North

80 The Real Bears Have Gone North The real bears have gone north and in their place are grizzlies with modern noses and paws with thumbs prowling the underbrush of public parks and back alleys. Once when they were sacred, the girls went to the woods to live like bears before becoming women. Wild for the weeks of initiation, they slept in wooly piles under the moon and sang the songs of bears. Now at the grocery, wildlife roams up and down between the cars, sniffing handouts from shoppers and knowing better than to snap or bite. One woman brings her own cub and maybe the young of others. She’s thin as a mongrel and her baby’s too young to hold out her own hand. What countryside is this, what species am I feeding with my loose change and dollar bills like dry leaves I give them? When I was a girl I had to pretend the groves of trees were full of people. Now the world is peopled enough and in the middle of this tropical city I imagine oaks, I imagine the land could still feed us. ...