Entering the Dream Lodge

First frost that morning, but light.
Tomatoes nipped, but the cosmos made it.
Survival of scarlet runners a celebration,
likewise the gladiolus, and marigolds.

Whatever's left, a gift of color,
ice crystals melt from the pickup's windshield.
And at the kitchen window - but that's another story.

When the bear came, we stopped washing the dishes.
When the bear came, we were gabbing and gobbling,
sharing stories and giant chocolate chip cookies,
a huge eclair, filled with cream.

The dough was rich, vanilla and crisp walnuts, sweet butter,
but the truth was the bear at the window,
part myth, but the realest one in the night.
An invitation, a summoning
into winter silence, cave of quiet,
the drowsy gathering of soft bodies
tumbled amongst themselves in familial sleep.

We were a sink, a window and 3 worlds away.

When the Bear came, we shrieked and chattered, ran upstairs and down
excited, wanting, terrified of wild,
utterly thrilled.
Longing in our domestic hearts,
for the honey of that contact.

We entered together: 3 women, maiden, and matron and elder.
Moon Women, reweaving the tattered warp of family
into the fine cloth of relations.
Wove it from the brown fur of bear,
his eyes wide and burnished bronze
from his bear world looking into the realm of women.

When the bear came we were stirred, we were blended.
Platter of pastries, green chile asimmer, a circle of talk.
It was cauldron, cooking pot,
out of the frying pan and into the fire of yearning.
Learning to disappear, to reflect, to shine.
Everything we enter the kitchen to enact, happened,
when the bear came.