The dinner guest arrived late.
No invitation.
No reservations.
Alone.

Just newly awake,
belly growling with
a devastating hunger.

Drawn here
for a free meal,
easy,
high in calories.
A good deal.

He almost got away with it
but for a soft noise.

3 a.m. is the witching hour.
I look out.
Is he even real?
or a supernatural specter?

To Native Americans
he is a spiritual guide.
To Robert Frost
a being that roams wide:
“The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.”

Ursa Major dominates the spring skies.
The Big Dipper, a guide.
Under the stars, my bruin friend,
I whisper “safely abide.”

I will listen to the DEC officers
and take the bird feeders
down until fall.
When you next again
“rock a boulder on the wall”.

Black bear in Raquette Lake. Photo by Jeff Nadler, archive photo.