Poem bears

Turns out that yesterday was International Polar Bear Day. If it weren't for those video news blats the Internet providers love to insert, I'd never have even known it. And I somehow doubt that many others would have either.

My observation of the day ranges from the silly set-up photo above (who says it doesn't pay to not defrost in a timely manner?) to the poem below, expressing some of my concerns about this mysterious creature.

Last day of February, and no doubt things are beginning to melt everywhere.

Night of the Bears 

While we sleep this wintry night away, you’re saving bears

dreaming metal islands for an ocean with no ice:

floating metal platforms for polar bears to walk on

artificial stepping stones so they won’t have to drown.

I see water dense with bears, nose to tip to nose,

like pieces in some Escher tessellation

swarming in a sea gone soupy warm.

Their whitish fur, slicked back so smooth,

makes them look like fish, thick as schools of salmon

used to be, spawning in some woodland stream, dense

so we might walk, carefully, on tiptoe cross their backs.