On our tour bus, the driver talked about black bears and grizzly bears, which reminded me of the poem/song lyrics I wrote about bears a year ago. After I showed it to her during lunch, she asked me to read it to all the passengers on the bus in the afternoon.
There are so many things that are unbearable these days, that I’m going to focus on what’s bearable.
What’s bearable for me, right now, is that
we’re all still alive and
there are no bears in my immediate vicinity.
Bears may be bearable to others, but I’ve been phobic about bears since the Boston Museum of Science did a presentation about bears in the 1980s. It was there that I learned you need to do the EXACT OPPOSITE to survive a brown bear or a black bear attack. Not only that, there is no way to easily know whether it’s a brown or black bear attacking.
Bears have been showing up lately in many communities in Massachusetts and to make that more bearable, I wrote these lyrics for a new song last night:
Black Bear, Brown Bear
by Ann Koplow
Black bear, brown bear,
Which is which?
Brown bear, black bear,
Here’s the hitch.
Black bears can be brown and brown bears can be black,
And surviving black or brown encounters mean a totally opposite tack.
The difference between them is just a slightly dissimilar snout,
So good luck when you see one knowing the right way to get out.
Climb a tree, run away,
Stay damn still, play dead and pray,
If you are going to make it to another day
You’d better guess right.
Brown bear, black bear
Which is which?
Black bear, brown bear,
That’s the hitch.
Unless you’ve got a ruler when you encounter your next bear.
You’ll never know which nose it is as much as you might stare.
Is this one brown or black, can’t tell, it’s looking pretty shifty.
Run, freeze, or yell, oh hell, your chances are strictly 50-50.
Brown bear, black bear,
Which is which?
Black bear, brown bear,
It’s a bitch!
Climb a tree, run away
Stay damn still, play dead and pray,
If you are going to make it to another day
You better guess right.
Stay very quiet, give a shout
Make yourself big, or small, don’t doubt.
You need to make a choice, commit! GET OUT OF HERE, BEAR! … Oh shit! (Scream)
In two thousand, one hundred, and fifty days of daily blogging, I’ve never written a post with “animals” in the title. That seems strange to this blogging animal, since there are so many animals in my blog posts.
