Lastness

A black bear sits alone in the twilight, nodding from side to side, turning slowly around and around on himself, scuffing the four-footed circle into the earth. He sniffs the sweat in the breeze, he understands a creature, a death-creature, watches from the fringe of the trees, finally he understands I am no longer here, he himself from the fringe of the trees watches a black bear get up, eat a few flowers, trudge away, all his fur glistening in the rain. And what glistening! Sancho Fergus, my boychild, had such great shoulders, when he was born his head came out, the rest of him stuck. And he opened his eyes: his head out there all alone in the room, he squinted with pained, barely unglued eyes at the ninth-month's blood splashing beneath him on the floor. And almost smiled, I thought, almost forgave it all in advance. When he came wholly forth I took him up in my hands and bent over and smelled the black, glistening fur of his head, as empty space must have bent over the newborn planet and smelled the grasslands and the ferns.