Saturday, May 26, 2007

Black Bear In The Alley

Every year a black bear wanders
down from the mountains.

Every year one black bear,
yet we compose no dream songs,
no verses of welcome,
although many of us
claim we are singers.

It is a sad thing to be
a singer to the world & not
able to carry a tune
for a black bear to hear.

If we stay inside our houses,
the bear will eat raspberries
& go home.

(1976)

Black bears were an uncommon sight in populated areas of Jersey in the '70s. But the poem is more about poets than bears.

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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson

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