"Bring to Bear"

Bring to Bear

Bring to bear a platter of assorted delicacies strewn

from tailings and debris: these could be alluvial fan

deposits or remnants of mountaintop removal. No

berries, and no cheetos, either. To the problem, bring

solutions—directives, admonishments, chastising,

pleading. If necessary, make yourself 5x larger than

yourself and shout—gather the noise bouncing

about inside, merge the sound molecules

through stomach, diaphragm, pathways of your

lungs, to narrowing esophagus, mouth, teeth, and

tongue tunnels. Be aggressive. Shout. Fight, with

machines, to save nature. When that fails, luxuriate

in broken concrete and jackhammers, the beauty

of the cacophony, the disjunctions of plastic and rock,

gas hissing from shale, rainbow sheens on water, the

automobile carapaces, the radioactivity, corn grown

in row upon row upon identical row, waving, tassels,

greenly, in the gentle winds of the topographic

slopes, pre-harvest. Blurred shapes at the cave

entrances. Blurred shapes at the roots.

***

Bear Safety Lecture Interrupted by Bear

The interlocutor interrupts via hair and intent to

translate visages, to reformat questionable sourcing

as a sculpture recognizable in bits and parts, each

scouring of hands against medium to discover real

furry fear swinging out of forest toward garbage

can collection and car trunks, placed tumbled

versus elevation of tents and canisters. Figure

is maybe parental at this point; or could be scholar—

there are positions to be assumed in this interstice of

where one communication drones and another

language insists. Translator or bridge? Division

Or path? Looking toward where the unknown

begins, efforts to discern patterns will be ongoing.

Marcella Durand is the author of AREA (Belladonna) and Traffic & Weather (Futurepoem). She is currently working on a book-length alexandrine titled In This World of Twelve Months.