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HARP SEAL

For her, life is floating
ice—she took whiteness
of snow for a skin,

the Arctic a ringing bell
she can hear even
through aching wind.  When
humans come close, she
stays still, too distant
from us to fear us.  We

want her pelt, and ice
doesn’t drift quickly enough
to help her.  Our hands
aren’t the only devices
of terror—the Arctic

wastes away.  On warmer
currents, oils  and poisons
float up to her black nose,
black eyes—

she doesn’t fear them either.
Her frozen world slips
farther away.  She too
retreats, shadow on snow,
her icy home cracking.



PANDA PASSING

She’s going, her panda
spirit finally returning
to China.  No trap
of laws can hold her—

the body is what she
leaps out of.  The zoo
looks strange.  Now
she can roam where
her ancestors roamed
before missionaries
and guns came.  People

cry over empty spaces
where cameras have
nothing to aim for.  She
can’t hear them.

A river swings
into view.  Grass.  Small
indigo flowers around
her paws.  As wind
meets her fur, she
climbs a rusty hill

where the sun is gold
straw in an owl’s nest.



CAPTIVE POLAR BEARS

A polar bear is a roamer,
needs to challenge ice
to hold her.  White fur makes
her into one big snowflake—

with jaws that could snap
your neck.  We watch as she
rears up, lies back down,
looks like someone on valium.
Arctic winds once blew against
her black eyes, forcing her
to focus on the next step,
next meal.  She cocks her head
to the sound of a radio.
Kids point, cameras pop,

the Arctic Circle
like a chalkboard
with the word “Home” erased.



“Nature likes to hide itself.”
                       —Heraclitus

Nature grows robins
and roses, but show me
bog pitcher plants, bats

in Borneo’s caves.
To see them often
requires patience.  Thirsty,

tired, I walk toward some
odd wink of pink, perhaps
a tail popping up,

a rumbling buzz.  Nature
holds secrets close,
as if scared of losing

something.  And why not?
We steal, run off
with treasure, leave marks.

Sometimes we love—our turn
to hide, ears up, a crackle
in deep brush.



SPACE TRAVELERS

Around dusk moonflowers
make me want to be
an astronaut stepping out
on one of these moons.
By morning, they’re closed
or closing, a fine way to live,
free of the sun’s
bossy look.  They know evening
will come and they’ll rule
the fence again, calling
all would-be space travelers,
providing light when moss
roses have turned in.

Click here to read Ken Pobo's essay, Poets among the Stones.
Click here to read more of Ken Pobo's poetry in ForPoetry.com.