Kristen Baum DeBeasi

Berries in Winter

What was it he said about black bears in Alaska this December—
how they can’t sleep—insomnia rumbling their stomachs like missing berries
and I wonder—how hard can it be to find berries? That’s their primary job—
finding food. That and raising cubs until they can survive on their own.

I think of the strange temps in California, of the way
our apple tree doesn’t know when to bloom anymore
or when to make fruit. The apples grow randomly; sometimes not at all.

I remember the year I traveled to cold country to spend the New Year
with a college friend bereft at the loss of a teen child. We went to the local Ralph’s
for berries and other groceries, then to her place to talk out all the things.

Her kids came home after the weekend at their dad’s, wanting pizza—
the four-dollar kind—but when they came into the kitchen
and saw what we had set out, the oldest said berries in winter?

To me, it seemed mundane. In California everything is within reach. But to him?
Strawberries in snow was like a moose at the equator or the Christmas Star
come back eight hundred years later; those insomniac bears waiting up to see it,
and looking for berries so they can have their fill before bed.

Kristen Baum DeBeasi is a poet, writer and composer whose poetry has appeared in Blue Heron Review, Fairy Tale Magazine, Menacing Hedge and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net nominee and was Moon Tide Press's Poet of the Month for July 2021. A native Oregonian, she now resides in Los Angeles. When she isn’t composing or writing, she loves testing new recipes, watching hummingbirds hatch, and collecting twigs for her fairy garden.