Today's poem is by Kateri Kosek

The Night Before the Capitol Is Stormed
       

a black bear finds my bird feeder,
bends the metal trellis it hangs on
down to the ground until the feeder bursts free
and spills its dark, rich prize.

This has happened many times.

Sometimes, I hear it from not yet sleep
through summer's open window,
the telltale thud and clamor of metal,
because I've forgotten to take it in
or grown complacent, pushing my luck.
Usually the bear runs off at clapping or Hey!
or the sound of the heavy door sliding open.
I dash out and bring the pieces in, dented but
sturdy, to salvage what I had forgotten
to tend to.

But now, it is January.

A bear is supposed to be
an afterthought
curled in the warm, dark earth,
un-fed and un-craving, hunger
a distant sensation.

But this morning, the old wreckage.
Tracks in the snow and the birds confused,
picking at the ground. It always feels personal,
this ransacking. A violation, an invasion,
though I know the bear is just smart, and hungry,
and means nothing.

I said they usually scare away.
There was one that didn't. It lingered
at the edge of the porchlight and leered.
I clapped and barked get out! like I meant it,
while trying not to wake the neighbors.
It was big and shaggy and unafraid.
It kept coming back and wasn't leaving
till satisfied. I remember how it glared at me,
how we both felt my power
slip away like a joke.

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Copyright © 2024 Kateri Kosek All rights reserved
from American Eclipse
3 Mile Harbor Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission