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DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE:
The Bear Somehow Speaks in English
Cold? How could a human ever know
Cold like that? In the cave,
My stone sleeping place
Seemed to have claws
That clung to the pine world beyond
Where the snow piled so high
The trees began to groan,
And ice boulders rolled
All around the entrance to my den.
In my heart’s ear, I could hear
The wolves, kinsmen from before the days
When the man-scent printed itself
Even on our winter dreams.
Yes, I know the wolf’s howl, how the sound
Changes as starvation comes near.
Dark? I know the frozen place where I slept
Made my breath a white mist
Like stars when there is no moon.
But there was no light to see the stars
Or mist, or the deep, deep snow.
There was nothing but a black
Deeper than the center of my mate’s eyes.
And an aloneness no human
Is capable of.
I had my breath but nothing else,
No food, no golden light or honey--
Only that dream place
Like a long swim in the rock-black water.
I was there so long
I almost became a stone.
But there was something--
Something my mate gave me
Before my trek to this den.
It took faith. We all have it--
Faith in the Life-Spirit that breathes
Something warm on us when humans
Who are foolish enough to enter
Our forest world are frozen
And dead.
In those days, the humans thought I was dead,
And when I came out alive when the snows melted,
They worshipped me.
It was the Life-Spirit I worshipped--
The Spirit who gave me my mate
And my twins.
Yes, I came to my cave
And endured the darkness,
The cold that even seemed to hurt the air,
And the hunger that echoed in me like an avalanche,
And I did it all for the Life-Spirit--
And for them.
They grew in me,
And when dreams of cottonwoods
Started to circle to the top,
And bees began to come as pictures
Behind my closed eyes,
I could feel them turning in my womb.
Can you imagine how the sun fed my eyes
When I pushed into the world of light
With the two of them?
And our first rush to the stream
Teeming with sweet new water--
How we reveled in the torrent--
Catching trout like butterflies!
And the berries—he and she and I
Tasted a thousand luscious ones
On our happy tongues.
And when we found the honey,
We knew that the long sleep
And the suffering
Were the Spirit’s way of readying us
For this sacred food.
Cold like that? In the cave,
My stone sleeping place
Seemed to have claws
That clung to the pine world beyond
Where the snow piled so high
The trees began to groan,
And ice boulders rolled
All around the entrance to my den.
In my heart’s ear, I could hear
The wolves, kinsmen from before the days
When the man-scent printed itself
Even on our winter dreams.
Yes, I know the wolf’s howl, how the sound
Changes as starvation comes near.
Dark? I know the frozen place where I slept
Made my breath a white mist
Like stars when there is no moon.
But there was no light to see the stars
Or mist, or the deep, deep snow.
There was nothing but a black
Deeper than the center of my mate’s eyes.
And an aloneness no human
Is capable of.
I had my breath but nothing else,
No food, no golden light or honey--
Only that dream place
Like a long swim in the rock-black water.
I was there so long
I almost became a stone.
But there was something--
Something my mate gave me
Before my trek to this den.
It took faith. We all have it--
Faith in the Life-Spirit that breathes
Something warm on us when humans
Who are foolish enough to enter
Our forest world are frozen
And dead.
In those days, the humans thought I was dead,
And when I came out alive when the snows melted,
They worshipped me.
It was the Life-Spirit I worshipped--
The Spirit who gave me my mate
And my twins.
Yes, I came to my cave
And endured the darkness,
The cold that even seemed to hurt the air,
And the hunger that echoed in me like an avalanche,
And I did it all for the Life-Spirit--
And for them.
They grew in me,
And when dreams of cottonwoods
Started to circle to the top,
And bees began to come as pictures
Behind my closed eyes,
I could feel them turning in my womb.
Can you imagine how the sun fed my eyes
When I pushed into the world of light
With the two of them?
And our first rush to the stream
Teeming with sweet new water--
How we reveled in the torrent--
Catching trout like butterflies!
And the berries—he and she and I
Tasted a thousand luscious ones
On our happy tongues.
And when we found the honey,
We knew that the long sleep
And the suffering
Were the Spirit’s way of readying us
For this sacred food.
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