Hello Friends,
Today’s poem by California poet Sophie Klahr first appeared in the The Threepenny Review (Fall 2022). I love that this poem starts off being about a bear, and ends up also being about what it means to write a sonnet — giving us the feeling the poet herself might’ve only discovered what this poem was about part-way through writing it.
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me.
— Ællen
Today’s poem by California poet Sophie Klahr first appeared in the The Threepenny Review (Fall 2022). I love that this poem starts off being about a bear, and ends up also being about what it means to write a sonnet — giving us the feeling the poet herself might’ve only discovered what this poem was about part-way through writing it.
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me.
— Ællen
Tender
I spent late morning weeping with the news:
a black bear with burnt paws is euthanized
along the latest wildfire’s newest edge.
It was crawling on its forearms, seeking
a place to rest. I Google more; reports
leak out: the bear had bedded down behind
a house, below a pine, to lick its paws.
In hours before its end, officials named
it Tenderfoot, though some reports report
just Tender. Later, I will teach a class
where we’ll discuss the length of lines in poems.
I’ll say a sonnet is a little song
to hold a thing that otherwise cannot
be held: a lonely thing; a death; a bear.
■
I spent late morning weeping with the news:
a black bear with burnt paws is euthanized
along the latest wildfire’s newest edge.
It was crawling on its forearms, seeking
a place to rest. I Google more; reports
leak out: the bear had bedded down behind
a house, below a pine, to lick its paws.
In hours before its end, officials named
it Tenderfoot, though some reports report
just Tender. Later, I will teach a class
where we’ll discuss the length of lines in poems.
I’ll say a sonnet is a little song
to hold a thing that otherwise cannot
be held: a lonely thing; a death; a bear.
■