what the politicians & others don’t who
haven’t heard them scratching at their doors,
screamed when they looked out and
kept screaming after the bears, who’ve
come to warn them, are gone.
And isn’t it pretty to think so?
The bears don’t mean us harm when they come
into our backyards, dig in trash cans,
peer into open car windows looking for food,
the bears aren’t thinking about us at all;
If they 
could create emojis we’d see
the sun filtered through dust particles,
small fires 
starting up, 
teary eyed
bewilderment at the browning grass, lack of berries,
and bugs, a hotter, dryer climate
We’d see a human face through a bear’s,
now one, then the other
Source: EarthJustice
Linda Lerner's A Dance Around the Cauldron, Lummox Press, 2017 is her most recent collection. She is the author of Yes, the Ducks Were Real and Takes Guts and Years Sometimes (NYQ Books) and a chapbook of poems inspired by nursery rhymes, Ding Dong the Bell Pussy in the Well. She previously published thirteen collections of poetry and twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her next collection, tentatively called, Taking the F Train, will be published by NYQ books in late 2018 or early 2019.