Poets’ Corner: Feela Marks the End of Summer

01 Sep Poets’ Corner: Feela Marks the End of Summer

Editor’s note: Author/poet/recently retired teacher-writing instructor David Feela is a regular contributor to Telluride Inside… and Out. The man is, as you will see, quirky and funny. His latest book, “How Delicate These Arches: Footnotes from the Four Corners,” a collection of essays, is available at Between the Covers Bookstore. The end of Labor Day weekend, the end (40th annual)  Telluride Film Festival marks the end Telluride’s summer season – and very nearly scavenging bears. David’s riff bearly touches all that.

Bears Ears

I should go there, to the mountain

where the trail to the Bears Ears begins.

According to friends, it’s always busy,

a half-dozen cars or so

parked at the trailhead.

Hikers would be climbing the bear’s spine

by the time I’d arrive.

I’m a late starter.

I’d be wandering around its ass

glancing up, thinking how much like lice

we hikers must seem to the bear

that belongs to those ears.

Once coming up a trail

on the way to Kennebec Pass

a black bear stepped out of the trees

and turned toward me.

I couldn’t help it.

My eyes grew wide as caverns.

That bear still lives

inside me, its breath

shallow but steady,

its ears alert,

its eyes turned inward

toward its long cold season

of dreams.