Black Bear Dreams
I'm getting slow under the blank day sky.
I've worked the heat days and the cubs
are alive. It will soon be longsleep.
I return at this time, wait
for the first big snow before entering;
let the white flakes hide our footmarks.
As I settle with the youngsters,
born in last year's darkrest,
their breathing sounds like prey,
in its last, slow sucking of the air.
They may dream of flashfish, snaking
through the shallows like rattlers.
The taste of pink exceeds all others:
fish, flesh, my aching teats.
Simon Williams (www.simonwilliams.info) has been writing since his teens and his first collection was published back in 1981. Since then, he has had seven further collections, his latest being a co-authored pamphlet with Susan Taylor, The Weather House, which has also been toured in performance. Simon was elected The Bard of Exeter in 2013, founded the large-format magazine The Broadsheet and published the PLAY anthology, in memory of his young grandson, in 2018. He is currently developing a one-man poetry show, Cosmic Latte, centred on astronomy, animals and sub-atomic particles.