Thin Bears
Coyote saw an old man
run across a street in Quebec City.
He appeared young, but
on the other side
he stooped again.
“Found another,” Coyote said
to Bear at an intersection.
Bear, Raven and Coyote
followed the man
to the back of a packing plant.
In the refrigerator room
they found two women and
the man Coyote had seen on the street.
They were very thin.
“What the hell are you folks doing down here?”
Coyote asked, taking off his hat
and letting the fur flow.
They changed to three thin white bears.
“We come down 35 years ago and
warned the tribes we were dying.
We could see the melt.
Now there is nowhere to hunt.
Countless of us have starved and died,
leaving bones for scrimshaw and medicine.
It is good to leave medicine,
but only in its place and time.
We are moving down.”
Bear remembered his sister that died in 2002.
They found her emaciated remains on the edge
of a blueberry field near Calais, Maine.
Coyote and Raven sat with him and prayed
around the sacred fire for four days.
Bear felt death reaching in his new language—
drought, hurricanes, fire, autoimmune illness.
It seemed he added a new word daily.
“Our brothers and sisters warned others,
but the others did not listen.”
Bear was angry as he thought of his sister
and the whales he had seen washed onshore
this past summer, their stomachs filled
with plastic.
The thin bears ate slowly so as not to get sick
from the hormone-fed sides of beef.
They stayed for a month until
strong enough to travel.
“There will be many more of us,”
said the old man.
Raven searched for new habitat.
Bear helped them walk.
Coyote encouraged them on.
Each time was getting harder
than the time before.
Jason Grundstrom-Whitney’s poetry has appeared in 3 Nations Anthology: Native, Canadian, & New England Writers and in the Underground Writers Association’s Anthology of Maine Poets. The band Osha Root recently produced a CD featuring his music and poetry. Jason has spent a lifetime working on Native American Rights, Sexual Assault, and Domestic Violence survival, Hospice and end of life care, homeless and environmental issues, and alternative medicine practice, A Bear Clan member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, Jason studied with native teachers and many others while he hitch-hiked across America for two and a half years. Jason is a father, grandfather, and husband, and he has been in recovery for 37 years.