Bear Lake: An exchange

Memory: Part 1

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An exchange: Memory

I am excited to publish Part 1 of An exchange, a side of the Poetry & Process newsletter where artists explore a topic through an exchange of their art. This is the fourth exchange, the first exploring the topic of Community with poet and artist Jason McBride, the second with author, artist, and environmental champion Katharine Beckett Winship on the topic of Kinship, and the most recent with writer Reena Kapoor mining the topic of Grief.

This month’s exchange is on Memory, a series of six pieces written over the past six months, poems from Brian Funke, author of Poetry & Process, and essays from Ann Collins, author of Microseasons. The six newsletters will be published in pairs over the next three weeks, each touching the topic of Memory , and each building from an aspect from the prior piece.

I hope you enjoy this collaborative effort on Memory.

Memory: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Bear Lake

Brian Funke

Photo by Abby Santurbane

Child’s [size eleven] feet
and six years of experience
knew [without a doubt]
the adventure was all there was 
and to explore that which was wild 
was the meaning of this day
[and that life is made
only of days].

Little shoulders shouldered
a[n orange] backpack
holding [three] heavy water bottles
with [green and blue] screw tops
and trail mix made at home
with the funny name GORP,
and [size eleven] boots
entered the trail at Bear Lake,
[ready to march towards the beast
that owned the lake].

Eyes [roamed for the namesake
and] spotted a branch 
for all [who travel by foot]
need a walking staff,
so he sat [along the trail]
with his blue pocketknife
to trim away twigs
and transform the branch
into a staff [that he would always lean on
and to keep the Bear at bay].

Trees [of pine] seemed neutral in the matter,
for they whispered the secrets
of these mountains into 
his nonsense filled ears and
[he learned the way 
would not always be this trail
but they also hid the Bear
from his view until]
even the trees began to shrink back
into the earth [in fear]
and eventually disappeared.

[With trees the coward
it became clear the bear could only stalk
from behind house sized boulders
but peering wide-eyed and wild-eyed around each
only chipmunks growled their threats
to drop the GORP filled pack and run
or face what they would become 
for they were the morphling bear
of the Bear Lake kingdom].

He did not grasp the gravity
of the matter and continued the ascent
[past the bite sized bears]
with every thought now only of gravity,
for it was a long way to fall
and in this place of directionless grandeur
he was the center it all orbited around.

Settling at the summit
of the highest peak [on earth]
he sat for a while to speak to Hallett,
[size eleven] feet pointed to the sky and
reclined into the [orange] pack still on his back,
his six years aged into sixty million,
lungs vanished in the thin air with the trees,
body bled from where twigs
had been indiscriminately trimmed,
and saw through the eyes of
every bear that had ruled this realm
for a time,
no longer a boy.

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The story in this poem is how I remember this experience in Rocky Mountain National Park when I was six years old. Specific pieces have been embellished as they seemed to tell a more exciting story. Embellishments have been bracketed. Various realizations that no six year old could realize have also been added, and bracketed…except the last eight lines, realizations which I left unbracketed. Perhaps I did not have words for this experience at the time, but my body remembers that moment…

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Thank you for reading Part 1 of Memory! Please leave a comment about what strikes you, speaks to you, or stirs in you while you read. Perhaps share a memory from your early years that still impacts you today.

Part 2 will be published tomorrow! Until then…

May you sit for a minute today with your feet pointed to the sky…

Brian

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