On the Death of the Day of the Bear
        with Candlemas in Transylvania (and Cesar Vallejo)

I will die on the day of the bear, when frost
loosens its lips from lindens, on the day the bear leaves
winter's den to taste the world's un-numbing.
People will say she seeks the sun out of love

for her own shadow: the vow of spring in running
water. The bear will pause to sip from a stream.
After this first drink, the bear is most dangerous.
She is wild, they will say of my mother after she flees

the homeland. She has died, they will mutter upon finding
her tattered bear coat, the one she wore over an ocean
to prepare for american winters. So, the groundhog
will gain ground, mark its new time in our minds.

And she who died in the shadow of bears
will rise in the suburbs, the streetlights, the pines.

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Copyright © 2022 Alina Stefanescu All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission