The Christmas Bear

And everyone said
to the big Christmas Bear
with his wrinkly face
and his floppy brown hair
 
“Bear, why do you shout
at the plants and the trees
and yell through the wind
as it carries the freeze?”

The Christmas Bear frowned
at his friends in the grove
and ruffled his nose
to the owl and the toad

“What do you mean?” He said
“What do you say?”
“Why do you ask this in your curious way?”
 
The two little friends
blinked and blunked and
thinked and thunked and
scrinkled and scrunked and both replied
 
“Bear, why do you shout
at the plants and the trees
and yell through the wind
as it carries the freeze?

Why do you bellow
as the ice melts away
and do your bear dance
as the night fades to day?”

He scratched his fat head
and tickled his nose and
began, “I suppose…
I suppose… I suppose…
 
It is — you see — to wake them all up
to wake up the trees
and the plants and the bugs
to bring them all back
now the winter is sung
and the leaves are beginning
to become all unsprung.”
 
The toad and the owl
tilted heads to the side
and tried, how they tried
to open up their minds

“But, why do YOU shout
at the plants and the trees
and why do YOU yell
through the wind
as it carries the freeze?
Why do YOU bellow
as the ice melts away
and do YOUR bear dance
as the night fades to day?”
 
The Christmas Bear shrugged
with his flappy old hands
hoping his words would
help them both understand
 
“Someone’s got to, haven’t they?
Might as well be me!”

Thom Boulton, 2021