On the last day of bear season, a hunter sits on his boulder out of habit more than hope. Still, every rustle makes him feel like a child again, listening for a faint signal on a shortwave radio. When a bear finally appears, he stays calm, raises his rifle, and looks through the scope. The world seems to leap closer, and the crosshairs slide along the animal's thick neck.
Then the poem turns. The bear freezes, fixed on something under the moss, and tears the ground open with one swipe. Yellow jackets swarm up in an angry halo. The hunter simply watches.
The poem never says whether he shoots, and that silence seems to be the point. The mood moves from patient boredom to tense focus, then to quiet wonder. Judging by the ending, the hunter's luck may lie less in a kill than in seeing something wild and unguarded up close.