The Three Bears

Daddy bear's voice always sounded like a roar.

He swung out of bed on all fours

‘Quickly now. Fill your belly with water from the
azure stream.

Mummy and Daddy will go out and see what we can glean.’

The boy stood, skin nacreous white,
but only in a certain light.

‘Mummy I seem to be getting fur.’

Something he didn’t think would occur.

Daddy bear sniffed the air and nodded.

Mummy bear pushed her snout to his stomach and prodded.

‘You’ll grow into a fine bear.
Then you won’t have a care.’

‘But mummy I don’t want fur or hair.
I want to stay young forever’.

‘Silly sausage you’re much too young.
Fur, tooth and nail are our protection from a hunter’s gun’.

‘I’m much too thin for a man to eat’.

Daddy roared, ‘men don’t need a reason for their meat’.

‘But am I not bipedal?
A cut down man still to settle?’

‘There is nothing that man cannot do,
but as bear you must show you’.

‘I don’t want to grow bitter and tall.
I want to stay as I am, thin and small’.

Daddy laughed. Mummy smiled.
He said, ‘you better tell the child’.

‘When your little man grows big and your brain small,
fur listens to the call.’

Daddy strutted. His pelt shook and muscles rippled.

‘I’d much rather stay a little boy, two nippled’.

I want to be a little boy, a son and not a bear,
for all the rest I do not care’.

Arrrgh roared daddy, ‘you’ll sniff and choke,
synaesthesia for different kind of folk,
when the wind changes
and a lady bear ranges
the quirks and quiddities will be found
not on hallowed ground
but in fur, teeth and claw
for that is nature’s law.
Hide your face to the wall- you may.
The human’s answer is an orchidectomy’.

‘I would rather be in the zoo,
behind bars than an animal like you’.

Mummy bear caught him a glancing blow,
just to show him who ran the show.

‘Don’t disrespect your father in our lair’.

The boy retreated and shouted ‘you just don’t care’.

Daddy said, ‘there’s little you have seen.
The world out there is obscene’.

‘I know enough to say.
I no longer want to stay’.

With tooth and claw did daddy rise tall,
his head brushing the roof and making the boy look small.

Mummy bear growled. ‘Don’t talk like that to your dad.
You know better than to make him mad’.

‘It was his fault. Apologise!
I will not. I hope he dies’.

‘That can be arranged,’ said daddy standing small.
‘The hunters are in the woods now after all.
I’ll run to them now if fates must.
Each bear turns to dust.’

‘Oh daddy, I didn’t mean to say.
I wouldn’t have you any other way.’

‘Son, come hunting, feed the skies,
look at this world of ours with new eyes.
Sniff around and seek a mate.
No one can stand between you and hate.’