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Impeded by a Bear.

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.

Margaret Soltan, August 5, 2011 11:54AM
Posted in: snapshots from home

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One Response to “Impeded by a Bear.”

  1. dmf Says:

    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

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