Tender

I spend late morning weeping with the news: a black bear with along the latest wildfire's newest edge. It was crawling on its forearms, seeking a place to rest. I Google more; reports leak out: the bear had bedded down behind a house, below a pine, to lick its paws. In hours before its end, officials named it Tenderfoot, though some reports report just Tender. Later, I will teach a class where we'll discuss the lengths of lines in poems. I'll say a sonnet is a little song to hold a thing that otherwise cannot be held: a lonely thing; a death; a bear.—