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Bear

11/24/2014

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Lookout Mountain Railroad
by Mockingbird

What’s that bear doing on the tracks?
He wants to ride the train.
Don’t let him board without a ticket!

I think of Arctus who sought his mother,
Callisto, changed into a bear by Zeus;
pursued by Hera’s jealous rage.

Authorities armed with rifles followed 

our local bear, made no effort to catch
or intervene so long as he was not aggressive.
 
Neanderthals buried bears beside their kin.
Bears carry the sarcophagus of Christ,
as illustrated in medieval manuscripts.

Our bear didn’t care about a ride.
He harvested blackberries beside the tracks.
Bear and berry, they’re almost the same word.

As the moon sets in the west, the great bear rises.
In the North the hunt begins. The bear’s blood
falls to earth, turns autumn leaves red.

This bear must have been a young male.
Old bears chase them out of their territories.
They don’t want competition for the sow’s attention.

Ancient myths tell of a young girl married to a bear.
Her cubs became great hunters and teachers.
Modern myths let Goldilocks go home.

The local bear was later sighted at a fire hall.
He moseyed through several back yards.
He won’t come back to buy a ticket.


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more from Mockingbird

11/23/2014

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Alabama Highway 75

Churches without steeples line the road.
Buildings Methodist and Pentecostal pass my view
as the car radio blasts out Johnny Cash.

It’s not just any tune by Cash, but
a religious classic recorded near his death,
“When the Man Comes Around.”


Despite the apocalyptic images in the song
I see only one church that boasts the name
Holiness, and none mention “Signs Following.”

My mind is on that book, Salvation on Sand Mountain
as one other church boasts a “No Denominational” sign,
but I still see no indication of snake handlers.

I can’t blame those folks if they’re circumspect.
Strangers might confuse their services with theater,
though one should never make a circus of another’s beliefs.

If its rattlesnakes you want, I once photographed a beauty
crawling along the roadside on another mountain, up near Mentone.
Big around as my forearm, she must have been pregnant.

A fellow naturalist once took a program to a church in Chattanooga.
She delighted the audience with hawks and owls.
At the harmless blacksnake, someone shouted,
“Wait, it’s not that kind of church.”

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Poem by Mockingbird

11/22/2014

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My friend Mockingbird asked me to post a few of his poems.

The Zen of Cranes
by Mockingbird
 
Cranes circle over Dayton, Tennessee, turn eastward.
Said to be an ancient species with millennia of history,
they provide a tourist attraction for neighboring Meigs County.

Dayton is home to Bryan College, named for an attorney.
He prosecuted a man named Scopes for teaching
human evolution, a banned subject at the time.

Bryan won his case against the famous
Clarence Darrow after losing a presidential bid,
as dramatized in the film, Inherit the Wind.

Faculty at Bryan College sign an oath affirming
Young Earth Creationism, implying the cranes
could not have a history of more than five thousand years.

The trial is presented again and again in a festival and play.
Tourists are encouraged to join a debate in which the cranes
offer no opinion. They seem to enjoy the corn fields though.


 

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July Haiku

11/3/2014

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Butterflies swarm to

White flowered magnolia tree

Perfume on her wrists


Mint stretches skyward

Solstice gone - short nights grow long

Last evening - the moon full

 

Bushy Antennae

Luna moth scents mate miles away

Green wings fade in days

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