The living symbol of Smokey Bear was a five-pound, three-month-old cub found up
a tree in the spring of 1950 after a wildfire killed his mother and injured him
Famous bear only you if only no burns
if only a mother protector
if only more back-burns you could have lived here
longer Returned from the dead now to the forest
of your youth such delight smell of mud and wet grass
creek trickling from nature’s sink
air pregnant with scents no blue jeans
belt hat or shovel just fur no finger pointed
only fire-scarred paws but no limps
What burned in you has not burned out
even if your life was bound by humans wretched
as we are
You frolic in the dream no fire
in orange fragments no air thickened
like poison honey no people
Sun slaps your fur without the shade
of a zoo cage you stand up sniff for friends
the rats and mice the salmon beauty of survival
of sustenance chance for a mate for cubs
Foraging-smoke-bear only you
If only no drought if only less heat
if only no overgrowth if only less greed
Forest-bear only you can
Start over if only we could if only
Returned from the dead bear only
If only you could prevent what’s ahead
—
Phyllis Klein is a psychotherapist and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including The Comstock Review, Sweet, 3Elements, I-70, The Minnesota Review, and Swwim Everyday, among many others. She was a finalist in the Sweet Poetry Contest (2017), the Carolyn Forché Humanitarian Poetry Contest (2019), and the Fischer Prize (2019). Her book, The Full Moon Herald, from Grayson Books (2020), has won poetry finalist from the Eric Hoffer Book Award (2021). During the Pandemic she started a reading called Poets in Conversation.
