Contributed by Cassidi O'Brien
What’s a bear to do on his birthday, he ponders to himself…
“Tis only spring. I’m hardly done hibernating. What will my birthday bring?”
He looks to Raven sitting in a nearby pine.
“Raven Raven, ever wise Raven, how many years am I?”
Raven cocks his head, listens to the wind and replies, “33, 33 years art thee.”
“33,” mulls the bear. “33. How can this be?
Tis only yesterday I rolled and played with my brothers, not a care, oh we were so so free.”
“Today is my birthday,” thought the bear. “I’m 33.
Today is my day. What I want, what I see, will be.”
Bear turned to the raven and roared a mighty roar!
The bear didn’t scare the raven. Nay, he looked, dare I say kinda bored.
“So it is Bear, what will you do on this day that is your day?” keened the raven.
“I’ve been asleep so long, I yearned and I yawned. Do you know what I am missing, dear raven? A good old-fashioned clean shavin’.”
“A shavin’!” exclaimed Raven! “But you’re a bear!
You’re meant to have thick, insulating, beautiful, bear hair!”
I know but it is just not me.
“Will you help me Raven, to just be me?”
“I will,” finally capitulated the raven.
“Though I wish it was your furry hide I was savin’!”
Two long painful days past
The raven and the bear success at last!
One last lonely bear hair resides on the birthday bear’s cold, barren hide.
Shivering, eyes wide, the bear aghast turns to the raven, “I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have been so brazen. It might be early spring, but dang Raven, I’m freezin’!”
Bear looks to Raven, then to the ground.
Gazes back to Raven, and realizes something profound!
Bear exclaims, “Tis my birthday. This is my day, for I ’m 33. Don’t you get it Raven, double digits, I get a wish you see!”
“I wish for my hair.
I wish to not despair.
I wish the world was fair.
I wish to dare. I wish to not have a care.”
“I wish I was a bear.”