by Gerald Friedman
Two Pairs of Eyes
“Two pairs of uninjured eyes from male brown bears (Ursus
arctos horribilis), both approximately 10 years old . . . formed the
sample group of this study. Both animals were brought
wounded to [Kafkas University Veterinary Faculty Clinics and
Wildlife Rescue] but could not be saved. . . .“
Turkish Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences · August 2020
1
Unaltered and alive, the eyes of Ursus open twice as wide
as human eyes, trapping fifty times more light.
2
The weight of an uninjured eyeball removed from a 10-year-old bear
that could not be saved equals 12 grams or 1.7 times more than a human
eye. Does a decade’s worth of living compress feral eyes with more
grams of vision or less, before the light goes out?
3
You too might flinch knowing the turquoise shine of a disembodied bear
eyeball comes from “triple stain,” a cocktail of dyes making hard-to-see
fibers seascape layered histology underneath the microscope’s slide.
Snug in its dismembered socket, the eye must reek of formaldehyde,
transformed into make-believe sorcerer’s stone, the researcher’s jewel of
unbearable blue light.
4
Maple leaves bristle parchment light across forest duff and mast.
Wood thrush sings its sorrel song. Acorns shine. Musky scent
sticks to leaf litter the way scabs of sap stick to my sweaty hands hours
after I hugged tight the scrub pine, my heart snapped open when I
surprised the bear–her presence so much bigger than astonishment,
the brown lightning of her eyes passing through me like autumn rain.
Juanita Smart (she, her,) has published her work in About Place Journal, River Heron Review, Rise Up Review, and West Trade Review, among others. She finds nourishment and joy in the company of other writers and animal lovers, and drafts her best ideas for poems while exploring local Pennsylvania game lands “off leash” with her galumphing dogs, Gabe and Wilson. https://www.facebook.com/juanita.smart.96/.
Gerald Friedman grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and now teaches physics and math in northern New Mexico. He has published poetry in various journals, and photography in the Santa Fe Literary Review as well as Feral. You can see more of his work at https://jerryfriedman.wixsite.com/my-site-2