Yesterday afternoon, a small black bear loped across Skyline Drive in front of Les UDs, who put on their brakes and watched him.
The bear watched Les UDs. Then the bear loped away.
We proceeded to park at Big Meadows Lodge and hike a bit and call La Kid back in DC to report the bear.
Mr UD insisted they eat at the dining room in the Lodge. Totally not UD‘s aesthetic (the open woody look is fine, but note the stiff-backed regimented chairs… and the curtains.. ), and she knew the food would be bland, but marriage is about compromise.
UD has fallen behind on a number of university stories, but she will now pull herself together and do a little blogging.
August 5th, 2011 at 12:09PM
this poem is for bear
“As for me I am a child of the god of the mountains.”
A bear down under the cliff.
She is eating huckleberries.
They are ripe now
Soon it will snow, and she
Or maybe he, will crawl into a hole
And sleep. You can see
Huckleberries in bearshit if you
Look, this time of year
If I sneak up on the bear
It will grunt and run
The others had all gone down
From the blackberry brambles, but one girl
Spilled her basket, and was picking up her
Berries in the dark.
A tall man stood in the shadow, took her arm,
Led her to his home. He was a bear.
In a house under the mountain
She gave birth to slick dark children
With sharp teeth, and lived in the hollow
Mountain many years.
snare a bear: call him out:
honey-eater
forest apple
light-foot
Old man in the fur coat, Bear! come out!
Die of your own choice!
Grandfather black-food!
this girl married a bear
Who rules in the mountains, Bear!
you have eaten many berries
you have caught many fish
you have frightened many people
Twelve species north of Mexico
Sucking their paws in the long winter
Tearing the high-strung caches down
Whining, crying, jacking off
(Odysseus was a bear)
Bear-cubs gnawing the soft tits
Teeth gritted, eyes screwed tight
but she let them.
Til her brothers found the place
Chased her husband up the gorge
Cornered him in the rocks.
Song of the snared bear:
“Give me my belt.
“I am near death.
“I came from the mountain caves
“At the headwaters,
“The small streams there
“Are all dried up.
– I think I’ll go hunt bears.
“hunt bears?
Why shit Snyder.
You couldn’t hit a bear in the ass
with a handful of rice!”
Gary Snyder