Bruin's Escape (Poetry)

I heard the story of a dancing bear —
a muzzle tight around his massive head,
he lumbered, clownish-clumsy, unaware
of crowds stood laughing as his trainer led
him through a town of narrow, cobbled streets
where people gaped in awe at his great size
and never guessed the soreness of his feet,
nor glimpsed the blur of pain in his brown eyes.

His harness glittered, sewn with silver bells
that jingled as he raised each hairy leg
and gave a low, half-hearted growl as well,
obeying the command to sit and beg.
This furry giant belittled and enslaved
by lesser men who recognized no shame,
denied him that lost wilderness he craved
and, dancing to their tune, pronounced him tame.

But somewhere in the cavern of his chest
dull anger and desire for freedom burned,
tormenting him like fever, gave no rest
as instinct to escape at last returned.
They say he broke his chains in rabid rage
and trampled several people in his flight,
scattering the matchwood of his cage,
then vanished in the sympathetic night.

I heard they paid some men to track him down,
hunt poor Bruin through the hostile hills,
revenge the mourners and the outraged town,
a bounty for the man who shot and killed
this savage, unpredictable, mad brute,
forgetting how they’d ridiculed, provoked,
they revelled in self-righteous, keen pursuit
of him who’d been the butt of their cruel jokes.

A hail of unjust bullets found their mark —
the bear groaned once, rolled over, lay quite still,
released into that all-forgiving dark...
Men huddled round to view their hapless kill —
back-slapping fools too ignorant to see
soft images of mountains, trees and sky —
horizons he had missed so desperately
reflected in each glazed, now-peaceful eye.