20 September 2008

Bears

Today was a long morning at work. I took my lunch break several hours too late and went for a much needed bicycle ride. At first I was pedaling furiously, lost in the thunder clouds in my own mind, taking no notice of the lovely autumn day, the wind, and the colors on the hillside when I went around a bend and there, just a few feet off the road sat a beautiful black bear munching on service berries. Suddenly everything was restored in the world and the rest of my ride I could feel the thunder clouds in my head slipping away even as they gathered on the horizon of the land.

5 comments:

  1. You are definitely braver than I am. The thunder clouds would've left for me too, but only because I'd be scared of the bear!

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  2. i want to come live in your world for a while. the nature and all that. the no fear.

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  3. That is so amazingly wonderful.

    I read this poem on someone's blog today:

    1
    Sometimes in the open you look up
    where birds go by, or just nothing,
    and wait. A dim feeling comes
    you were like this once, there was air,
    and quiet; it was by a lake, or
    maybe a river you were alert
    as an otter and were suddenly born
    like the evening star into wide
    still worlds like this one you have found
    again, for a moment, in the open.

    2
    Something is being told in the woods: aisles of
    shadow lead away; a branch waves;
    a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its
    path. A withheld presence almost
    speaks, but then retreats, rustles
    a patch of brush. You can feel
    the centuries ripple generations
    of wandering, discovering, being lost
    and found, eating, dying, being born.
    A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
    the fur you no longer have. And your gaze
    down a forest aisle is a strange, long
    plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
    For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers
    wider than your mind, away out over everything.

    William Stafford,
    Atavism from The Way It is: New and Selected Poems

    Your bear reminds me of this.

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  4. amanda, I've had so many bear encounters it didn't even cross my mind to be scared at this one!

    silver fox, :)

    painted maypole, you would be wlecome! The door is always open :)

    hel, oh, thanks for sharing such a beautiful poem!

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