Sadie and Pal, A Ballad
Sadie and Pal are dead now—
since November, more or less.
Which seems like a long time ago,
but grief has its own address.
Sad Cornelia.
Sad Connie.
No bears at Bear Mountain.
The Trailside Zoo is bear-less now,
which feels like poor accounting.
The heroes of my heart,
I like to think,
are not exactly gone.
They’ve slipped into another dimension
and carried the good stuff on.
Down some secret tunnel
beneath the mountain floor,
where bears have endless blueberries
and nobody asks for more.
Meanwhile, here I am,
with cholesterol,
with fat,
with the mysterious determination
of my body to attach it
to my belly and my hips.
But my heart is fine.
So, suck it up, Connie.
It’s not forever.
There will be bears again.
Eventually.
Once they upgrade the habitat
and presumably get the paperwork
and whatever else you need
to make a bear comfortable
in the modern world.
And then the names.
Oh, the names.
Sasquatch and Sam.
Palisade and Peek.
Sable and Spruce.
Hudson and Highlands.
Ramble and Ridge.
Picnic and Basket.
Actually—
Maybe the last two.
Picnic and Basket.
Tell me that isn't a pair of bears
who know exactly what they're doing.
But before we get there,
before the new bears arrive,
perhaps we could ask the visitors
to stop treating the park
like the landscape is indestructible.
Rest, people.
Let the mountain breathe.
Let the trails be trails.
Let the woods be woods.
Let the bears, when they return,
have something worth coming back to.
Sadie and Pal are gone.
The mountain remains.
And somewhere, I hope,
two enormous bears
are having an excellent afternoon
in another dimension—
probably eating berries,
probably ignoring us,
and absolutely
not worrying about their hips.
