CAPTION: And no one ever heard from the Anderson brothers again.
Credit: The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Archives for posts with tag: bears
TREAT EACH BEAR
by Gary Lawless
Treat each bear as the last bear.
Each wolf the last, each caribou.
Each track the last track.
Gone spoor, gone scat.
There are no more deertrails,
no more flyways.
Treat each animal as sacred,
each minute our last.
Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls.
Death rattles and
dry bones.
Each bear walking alone
in warm night air.
SOURCE: The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America, Edited by Karla Linn Merrifield and Roger M. Weir (Foothills Publishing, 2006), available at Amazon.com.
IMAGE: “Black Bear, Maine” by Mark Silk. Prints available at finartamerica.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gary Lawless lives the literary life — literally surrounded by books in his Gulf of Maine bookstore. He also runs a small press and teaches poetry to underserved populations, including recent immigrants and Iraq War veterans. The environment looms large as a theme in his poems – the natural world is sacred. Animals of the world are populations, cultures, and beings as much as we are. Gary Snyder, Ted Enslin, and James Kohler are his mentors. His poetry collections include Poems for the Wild Earth (1994), Caribouddihism (1998), In Ruins (2002), and Behind the Wall (2005).
YOU ARE IN BEAR COUNTRY
by Maxine Kumin
Advice from a pamphlet published by the Canadian Minister of the Enviroment
They’ve
been here
for thousands of years.
You’re
the visitor:
Avoid
encounters. Think ahead.
Keep clear
of berry patches
garbage dumps, carcasses.
On woods walks bring
noisemakers, bells.
Clap hands along the trail
or sing
but in dense bush
or by running water
bear may not hear your clatter.
Whatever else
don’t whistle. Whistling
is thought by some to imitate
the sounds bears make when they mate.
You need to know
there are two kinds:
ursus arctus horribilis
or grizzly
and ursus americanus
the smaller black
said to be
somewhat less likely to attack.
Alas, a small horribilis
is difficult to distinguish
from a large americanus.
Although
there is no guaranteed life-saving way
to deal with an aggressive bear
some ploys
have probed more
successful than others.
Running’s a poor choice.
Bear can outrun a racehorse.
Once you’re face to face
speak softly. Take
off your pack
and set it down
to distract the grizzly,
Meanwhile back
slowly toward a large
sparsely branched tree
but remember
black bears are agile climbers
in which case
a tree may not offer escape.
As a last resort you can
play dead. Drop
to the ground face down.
In this case
wearing your pack
may shield your body from attack.
Courage. Lie still. Sometimes
you bear may veer away.
If not
bears have been known
to inflict only minor injuries
upon the prone.
Is death
by bear to be preferred
to death by bomb? Under
these extenuating circumstances
your mind may make absurd
leaps. The answer’s yes.
Come on in, Cherish
your wilderness.
SOURCE: The Dire Elegies: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America, Edited by Karla Linn Merrifield and Roger M. Weir (Foothills Publishing, 2006), available at Amazon.com.
IMAGE: “Black Bear Has a Gentle Look” by Richard Wear. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maxine Kumin (1925-2014) was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award. She was the poetry consultant for the Library of Congress in 1981-1982, and taught at many of the country’s most prestigious universities, including MIT, Princeton, and Columbia. Kumin’s poetry collections include Nurture (1989), The Long Approach (1986), Nurture, Looking for Luck (1992), Connecting the Dots: Poems (1996), The Long Marriage (2002), Inside the Halo and Beyond (1999), Jack and Other New Poems (2005), Still to Mow (2007), and Where I Live: New and Selected Poems (2011).
BEAR POEM
by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser
How attentive the big bear resting his chin
on the bird feeder, an eye rolling toward my window
to see if he has permission for sunflower seeds.
…Find more poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser in BRAIDED CREEK: A Conversation in Poetry, available at Amazon.com.
Illustration: “Grin & Bear It” label (by Ray Troll) for Bruin Blend® coffee, available at ravensbrew.com, where the product description is pure poetry…
Bruin Blend®
by Raven’s Brew Coffee®
Decadently luxurious.
Heavenly syrupy body
in a laid-back orchestration
of pleasant earthy,
herbal and warm-spice flavor notes
creates a pool of deep ponderance
for your palate.
I AM BEAR
Pueblo Indian Poem
I am a Bear.
In my solitude I resemble the wind.
I blow the clouds together
So they form images of my friends.
…from Many Winters: Prose and Poetry of the Pueblos, edited by Nancy Wood, available at Amazon.com
SKY BEAR
Mohawk Indian Legend
Long ago,
three hunters and their little dog
found the tracks of a giant bear.
They followed those tracks
all through the day
and even though it was almost dark
they did not stop, but continued on.
They saw that bear now, climbing up
a hill, which glittered with new-fallen snow.
They ran hard to catch it,
but the bear was too fast.
They ran and they ran, climbing
up and up until one of the hunters said,
“Brothers, look down.”
They did and saw they
were high above Earth.
That bear was Sky Bear,
running on through the stars.
Look up now
and you will see her,
circling the sky.
…from THE EARTH UNDER SKY BEAR’S FEET: Native American Poems of the Land, a storybook for children 4-8 by Joseph Bruchac, with illustrations by Thomas Locker (Puffin, 1998), available atAmazon.com.
SKY BEAR
Mohawk Indian Legend
Long ago,
three hunters and their little dog
found the tracks of a giant bear.
They followed those tracks
all through the day
and even though it was almost dark
they did not stop, but continued on.
They saw that bear now, climbing up
a hill, which glittered with new-fallen snow.
They ran hard to catch it,
but the bear was too fast.
They ran and they ran, climbing
up and up until one of the hunters said,
“Brothers, look down.”
They did and saw they
were high above Earth.
That bear was Sky Bear,
running on through the stars.
Look up now
and you will see her,
circling the sky.
…from THE EARTH UNDER SKY BEAR’S FEET: Native American Poems of the Land, a storybook for children 4-8 by Joseph Bruchac, with illustrations by Thomas Locker (Puffin, 1998), available at Amazon.com.
CAPTION: And no one ever heard from the Anderson brothers again.
Credit: The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I AM BEAR
Pueblo Indian Poem
I am a Bear.
In my solitude I resemble the wind.
I blow the clouds together
So they form images of my friends.
…from Many Winters: Prose and Poetry of the Pueblos, Edited by Nancy Wood, available at Amazon.com
BEAR IN THERE
Poem by Shel Silverstein
There’s a polar bear
In our Frigidaire—
He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there—
That polary bear
In our Fridgitydaire.
Drawing: “Bear in There” by Shel Silverstein
Silver Birch Press 