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Contemplative, Risa Bear, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeRisa Bear

Or, Sometimes

you'll come to this, lovingly rooting in earth, gently setting to one side fat worms, watching them sink from sight with shrugs of their nonexistent shoulders. As your wrists dry up, caked in clay, you'll look around you, and your small red barn, your irises, your bamboo patch, your ash and oak, your three unfurling maples whispering in the breeze, your white house bracketed in lilacs, breathing smoke, your woodshed stacked with fir, your mint and parsley putting on new life, your pears and apples, your geese in their bright plumes will bring to you the thought of what this is that you are digging, bit by troweled bit. Assuming that the clouds will come, which now
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Polyhymnia

walks between the beds critical of eye, noting the way the leaves of corn have curled upon themselves, rattling in hardly any breeze at all. They'd like to make believe it's Autumn now, would they? Playing at getting past the part where seed heads form, waving their silky hair, and then depart, leaving the leaves bereft of any purpose but to leave this world -- except, of course, they don't: that is the gift of mulch. She brings the hose and couples to its end a yellow whirligig, made to sing the holy song of water to the leaves. Today, green fullness. Tomorrow, living grain.
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Twenty-One

I await you. People pass and glance, curious. I do not mind; you may arrive or you may not. What I have done, I have done.
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Beech Lake

Spring, and spring of her life also. She walks to water to stand behind sedges, thinking of snakes. And snakes come. First one, lazily, tail sculling, head high, counterclockwise along shore, and then another. And then -- another. All going, she notes, the same way round. Next day, incorrigible child, she rigs a black fly rod with stout green line tied, butt end and tip end: a snare. Back to the sun-long lake. The snakes continue their rounds. She casts loop, she waits. One comes, riding high in clear water, black eye bright. Caught, the looping, livid thing bends the rod double almost. On close inspection she speaks its given name: common water snake. Proudly she touches the twisting ribbon of flesh,
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Some Things Will

In a garden's grave, life remains: beets Never pulled may be pulled now, to boil And put back, for the flock to discover; Greens have carried on and are taken And dehydrated, or left for the goose to strip; Red highlights show missed tomatoes; Dense thickets of dead vines give beans. Even the weeds, that had defeated her, Now yield rich heads of seed for hens. She walks about, coat-wrapped, scanning Ground for spuds rolled out by hen feet. Rarely, rewardingly, a ripe winter's squash Awaits discovery. Gone to seed last year, Viable chard and kale erupt now Even as it were March, and are welcomed. Little remains of her apple crop,
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Election

She drags her rusty kneeler as way opens amid plants knee high, wetting her blue trousers in dew, as clouds decide to open or not, as the morning star recedes and hides itself, with a sliver of new moon, in day. Poppies have not yet awakened, nor daisies. She kneels and kneels again, eyeing potato vines, chard, kale, spinach, beets to see are they hiding pretenders beneath their skirts: thistle, geranium, nipplewort, even nascent blackberries, ash trees, an oak. Most of all, she seeks out bindweed, a long vine snaking from place to place, climbing, smothering fruitful things. She knows she's prejudiced, but her rationale is:
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Sixes

She went to fight bindweed among cabbages, peas, borage, arugula, potatoes, raspberries and such. Distracted by thistles, as they are more easily removed, she worked an hour, then eased ponderously into her cracked resin chair, out of breath, watching two goldfinches having it out on a mossy fence post. What is not said in six syllables is silence.
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Too Soon

These are not the tomatoes she wanted, Heirlooms such as Cherokee Purple, or Even Brandywines. But the clerk only Sells what's brought in, finds labels, wands Each three-inch pot through as she would A bag of chips or box of three penny nails. Really, the old woman muses, I should have Ended my day at the seedsman, but it's not Near here -- what, twenty miles? So I've Opted for the discount store again, to buy These things that hurt my soul: hybrids. There's this about them, they do produce Heavy fruits that please her folks and friends Easily enough, and in larger numbers. But To her there's something in them lacking. Old varieties taste of the eyes of young
ContemplativeRisa Bear

As Rain

The cool-weather plants have bolted, and she Has had to gather the saddest cases. Even kale, not last year's but this year's, and Chard are defying the routine she has, Over decades, established as garden law. Often she walks through now, knife in hand, Lopping flowering stalks, vainly trying Whether some leaves can be kept soft Even as the heat chases her dream of spring Away again. Like last year. Like the year before. There's something to be said for radishes, Her bowl tells her, which is that it is not Empty. With arugula and rocket, leaves Ripped from already woody stems, snipped, Piled loosely, steamed lightly, stirred Lazily with duck egg on hot iron
ContemplativeRisa Bear

Aid

At her western window, she's stitching. The needle pricks her sometimes. She moves Her hand aside to not bleed on silk. Even as she works, her waxed thread in Rows appearing like commas, she sees a Western meadowlark pounce in tall grass Ever growing, unmowed, outside. When She stops, peering over thick lenses To note the meadowlark has a grub, to her Ears come, faintly, short songs of its mate. Reaching for her scissors, she snips a tail, Nudges it out of sight behind a stitch. When this row is done, she'll ask her mate If it will do. If not, she'll turn her mother's Needle and pull thread, loop by loop Down to the place her mind wandered.

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