Walking Bear

And so at work I changed the packaged wallpaper to Arctic animals. I don't see the wallpaper often, being in various text-screens all day. But one photo -

A plain leading back to low, snow-bearing hills under uncertain, parting, pale grey cloud. The foreground a young polar bear upright, walking, appearing to have walked to this spot on clouds, to spend a life walking on clouds, torn snow on ice on sea the colour of a deeper sky. The bear's hands hang, & would be human except for their thickness and stiffness, their lack of suppleness; a vulnerable open chest and belly, curious steady gaze, the dark centres of the ears a second, subsidiary set of eyes also watching, parsing the invisible camera & photographer, and also gazing past them, directly through the screen.

And so we play this fantasy game, the bear and I, & gaze into each others' worlds.

Bear on torn snow, on ice the colour of a deep sea of sky; me on a chair, surrounded by nothing real: screens, walls; movable walls, wobbly, pretend. Bear walking, famed for walking; me still, constrained & still, the last point of an old curved spine supporting health-life-household. Our paths are clouds and razors.