Bruins, A Triptych
By Jamie Foley
I
You knit wool hats while seated
in the passenger seat —
some with tassels,
some green,
some shades of tan.
I drive the Alberta prairies
stretching for miles before us
like ocean.
You’ll be with me until Calgary.
There you’ll get on a plane
returning home.
Me,
I’ll keep driving
until Montreal
and then south.
We camp each nightfall.
The last we’ll stay in a hotel
with TV,
eat a roasted chicken,
drink a bottle of wine.
Stopping off at Liard hot springs
our first night out,
we pitch the tent and eat
heartily from tins —
oysters and sardines,
some cheddar cheese,
an apple.
That evening we soak
in the sulfur pools
with old men and women.
The latter wear bathing caps
and flowery one-piece bathing suits.
Talking in hushed tones,
the men solitary,
somber
under the cover
of birch trees,
ferns curve out of
peated soil.
Under midnight sun,
walking back along a boardwalk
over wild flowers and clear,
shallow spring water,
I think of the bear.
I think about telling you,
but decide better against it.
The vision of it pulling
that woman out of a tree
killing her
in this beautiful place
last spring.
II
Like silent mausoleums,
they stand,
barely moving in grass —
beautiful, thin, reedy
grass, noisy as I move
through it, clicking, clacking
against my thighs.
Aware of their presence,
on alert I advance
to open field to find
mother and adolescent
eating the moist shoots
unperturbed,
singular in their task.
The mother lifts her head
imperceptibly sniffing the breeze,
resumes grazing.
Her mountainous
brown and golden back
reflects the afternoon
sunlight.
She could charge me,
if threatened,
pull back
her ears,
the cowling
of hair on her neck
raised
and if she decided
to attack,
she could
break my neck
from the initial impact —
bone against muscle,
of fur.
III
You tell me in your
most assertive tone,
“Jamie, I’ve never
seen a brown bear
this close; I’m rolling
down my window.”
We’ve just pulled out
of a gas station along
the Canadian Highway,
our cups of tea steaming
in holders between us.
The brown bear meanders
almost drunkenly in a field —
I pull over to the shoulder.
Unable to see us,
probably smelling us instead,
it moves more concertedly,
expectantly
towards the car.
Suddenly
I remember the open
wrappers of food —
peanut butter cookies,
sliced apples,
smoked salmon
in the back seat.
“Jane, he’s getting a bit close.”
I glance one more time,
my attention split
between pressing the button
to Jane’s window
and maneuvering
the car back onto the highway.
This, I can still see —
beady, black eyes,
nostrils flared,
raised head,
broad shoulders
rolling up the embankment,
quickening
and the possibility of Jane’s face
pressed up against glass.
