Locate a desire
to envy brook trout.
Lie very still to become
a bear for religious reasons that
wouldn’t matter much for an older
bear, slow in the memory
of eating and hunger.
That night, I recall dancing
and the words the bear set fire to,
saying that it is better
not to think in bed.
From pages 116-117 of The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison (Grove Press, 2001).