Mother Bear on Rocky Shore

at this point paw prints cease as ocean spray leaps past its own surface once again the mother bear paws in silence on ground which repels the tread of the living to the precipice there are no sea-partings where deliverance paves paths for faith

so every tomorrow her cubs will huddle with ears pricked to the wind and question whether it is the spray that is static and rocks which move, or whether it is she who hides their direction with her presence.

© Diane Stevenson Schmolka (Fall 1985, seeing a postcard of a mother bear with two offspring behind her at the ocean’s edge, B.C.)

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