Not a bear, I know, yet…. bear arose before the skull, knowing better. Knowing bear. Knowing bone & seal & it has sat on my desk for months now, most recent taking.
Most recent retrieval, too, after my love gave it away to a friend who wanted to paint it, make it sculpture. I, reclaiming a self I’d squelched, asked for it back. So that I could let it go rather than letting it go that way. It was important.
So: I start with the bear (skull of an old gray seal, teeth worn, bones pocked) I picked up on a walk with a new friend. After I told myself I’d collect nothing more. I picked it up and carried it the few miles home. I don’t know why.
Weeks, months on a shelf where we put things in transition from car to house, house to car. I know it looked forgotten. I thought about it restless, relentless. Skull, skull, skull, start, skull, start, start…. it thrummed (not growled, not murmured).
The looking at what’s been taken, the looking at the taking. The giving back. The giving back to earth sea world what I’ve taken, taken in, shelved and held beyond my time.
Look now: Look. Re-member. Make of its parts a whole as only, now, imagination can. As only mouse, lichen, dune grass, bacteria. As only memory. As only the giving back which I have not yet done even in the time I’ve attended.
