Carole Johnston

Sister Mother Child

Many years ago, my older sister  sent me some antique prints, two pictures by the same artist of a small native girl talking to a bear.  In one, the girl knelt beneath a tree. In the other she sat in a canoe. I had been thinking of myself as one who talks with bears. I wrote her a letter and said, “How did you Know?” 

shaman dreams 
find me hibernating 
with memory
shape shifting shadows
keep me winter warm

On the anniversary of her death, I see her sitting beneath the tree and I see myself in the canoe, both of us, conversing with those bears.

Snow falls on her grave as it did on her funeral, the ground so frozen they had to wait to bury her until it thawed. We left her there in the mausoleum with red roses frozen near the vault.   

I slide 
into my bear skin
and curl up
ice crystals cling 
to my fur

I bought myself a Hopi pendant, shaped like a bear, made of opal and silver like a winter sunset.  After wearing that talisman day and night for several years, I lost it.  Sometimes, when winter takes my mind, I feel the pendant between my fingers like a rosary.

now I am safe
sister mother child
bear memory
winter sun blazes
in opal green light

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About the Author

Carole Johnston is a poet, novelist, memoirist, teacher, and mother. She’s published poems and stories in numerous journals, four chapbooks and one full length book. Her newest work, Cassandra on the Spectrum, will be published in September 2026. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she appreciates an extensive community of poets.  She writes short form poems as a spiritual practice.

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