Flying Bears
by P.H. Wise

A difference not of quality but kind –
You don’t relate to a brother like you do a sister – it’s not the same.

“I’m an eagle who thought he was a bear,” he said,
“And now I’ve learned to fly at last.”
I looked him up and down and shrugged amiably.
A queer light burned in his clear blue eyes as he flapped his chimerical wings,
and in the sun-haze, maybe he did look a little like an eagle – around the eyes.
“You should come with me,” he said.
“You can follow where I go. Fly with me into the blue.”
Then, borne up on his wings unseen,
he leaped from the cliff-side into sun-baked air, as if the heat itself would hold him.

I sadly sat and watched my brother bear until he was only a distant speck,
but I couldn’t follow him; I have no wings, nor any need of flight.
The speck vanished into the blue horizon like a pebble into the ocean.

Then my stomach growled,
and I ambled off in search of honey.