Jennifer Handy - The Loss of the Bear

In Jennifer Handy’s poem “The Loss of the Bear” we are faced with the blending of symbolism, expectation, reality, and perhaps even revelation. The “polar bear” sought by the poem’s narrator could be a placeholder for any number of things which we as humanity expect to exist in a certain way. “Do they find what they look for, or do they just search? Is the searching enough without finding?” Jennifer posed to The Dewdrop. “Are we really just looking for ourselves when we are where we are?”

The Loss of the Bear

I go in search of the creature
three thousand miles
only to find
there is no
————original
I’ve seen the bear before

In fact, I do not see the bear at all

I see bottles of Coca-Cola
I see Nanook of the North
I see National Geographic

————symbol of global warming
————symbol of climate change

this is not a polar bear
this is not a polar bear
this is not a
this is not
this is
————something other
————something else

Jennifer Handy

Jennifer Handy is the author of California Burning and Dirt. Her poetry has been published in or is forthcoming in Chalkdust, The Closed Eye Open, CommuterLit, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Loud Coffee Press, The Rising Phoenix Review, Tangled Locks Journal, and Wild Roof Journal.