July 9, 2021Goodbye for Now
A guy from DNR tracked the neighborhood bear, a yearling who’s been causing quite a stir on Facebook & in rubbish bins along Gordon Drive. Scraps, all it wanted, wandering in excessive Summer heat. Families can’t live with a bear on the street making a mess, marking its territory by scatterings of meat-scented plastic & a few violent markings on the trees. At first, the DNR rep swore the bear would be put down, its black/brown coat blooming lips & roses. But everyone has a camera. Photos posted in the Facebook group once reserved for neighborly complaints about fireworks or people speeding were like those of someone’s happy child at play in a brutal world. So, the bear will be relocated to a wildlife preserve. Plenty of space. Lots of caves & streams. There’s enough emptiness in West Virginia for any reclusive animal—a myth, a memory—escaping the limelight in which it never wanted to be like a murderer’s wife.
from #72 – Summer 2021