We’ll be fine, dad

They say
when you meet a bear
play dead
If it’s a grizzly bear you
may also climb a tree
because they do not climb
due to their anatomy
but they have a long reach so you
must climb up high,
higher than you would think
and quickly, probably.
others say
raise your arms up
make yourself bigger
yell maybe
or is that mountain lions
if you have bear spray
maybe play dead
then give them a squirt when they get close
others say wear bells on your
clothes so you don’t surprise them
don’t feed them
don’t pet them
and whatever you do don’t piss on their tree
I have never seen a bear in the wild
although once i thought i did
in the fog
but it was just tree stumps
but i was still real scared
and once, and my little sister will confirm this,
when we were picking huckleberries in the hills,
it got foggy, and i told her to walk
in front
on the logic that should we
encounter a bear,
she was quicker than i and
could elude it better.
Bears are on my mind because
they have bears in Sweden,
i have been told,
and my daughter Beta and I are
flying there tomorrow
to spend a week in a dinky
red cabin
in the woods
by a lake
and i for one am really
looking forward to picking
berries in the woods.
and hiking with my kid.
i joked that we were concerned about
spending a week together in a tiny
cabin, but she reminded me
that i had helped her learn
to drive
and we still get along.
and i will walk in front this time

Imagine

A man in his mid-60s wearing a dark suit walks through a genteel urban neighborhood on his lunch break, feeding crows here and there but mainly scanning the skies for the Attack Crow, which he is trying to befriend by feeding it before it can attack him.

His head swivels like one of those big antennas that swivel so much.

A little old lady with great hair and looking very fit in tight jeans (little old ladies are not what they used to be) with a little old dog on a leash follows the man around and finally cuts him off on a street corner and just regards him, as if waiting for him to recognize her, or slowly realizing the man she thought she recognized is a stranger — the man is not sure, and wonders if she is just going to reprimand him for feeding nasty crows, or complain about it, but she finally, after standing there staring at him, just says,

“Grüß Gott!” to which he replies “Guten Tag!” and after an uncomfortable pause that he cannot parse both go on their way; the man guessing it was a case of mistaken identity, maybe? like maybe he has a doppelgänger in the neighborhood (because this happens on a regular basis, strangers greeting him with odd familiarity) that all these people now think is unfriendly or he is getting really bad at remembering faces.

Or maybe she was just giving him an impromptu psych eval because he looked suspicious or crazy because he was looking over his shoulder and up at the sky and the roofs of buildings because he was in the territory of the attacking crow?

Because, seriously, for 2-3 blocks it feels like a forgotten episode from the Twilight Zone TV series which, auspiciously, began the same year the man did, 1959, and ran until 1964, the year he entered school and gave up hope for humanity.

Rod Serling pitching his idea for the episode: Imagine if you will a man on the cusp of retirement losing his mind because of a crow that attacks only him for some unknown reason.

TV network executive: Rod that doesn’t make any fucking sense. Rod, that makes no goddamned sense at all.

Wie geht es dir?

Come out
to the woodpile
The stones i am moving
have a lot of spiderwebs on them
and i hear my father’s voice
“it’s more scared of you
than you are of it”
that’s when he lost all credibility
for me
a little boy
because – first of all, how do you know how scared i am, or a spider; second, some spiders are no doubt motivated by fear to bite you; third what good do you intend to do by saying that?
and that is who i have been ever since,
a little boy without faith
in his father
besides he was a lot of admirable
things, for a little boy – how far he could
hit a baseball!
and fix a car!
but his fears were ultimately a prison
something else i inherited,
besides the chuckle and the short legs
so what do you do?
i have spent a lifetime
saving all the bugs
even the jumping rat in that house
in greece that one summer when the kids were little.
and now
in honor of my father
and myself
and my kids
i do it even if it scares me
and after a very challenging
and scary
and fucking weird week or so
to the point where
i am unable to sleep
i ask you
o wise spider
is it possible to confront too
many fears
at one time?

Not at your age
pack as much in
as you can
not because of some YOLO hangup
but because of YNKWTAWB thing
you never know
when the aneurysm will
burst
you know?
no i am just shitting you
just live
live for the life
for the curiosity
for the discovery
for the hugs and kisses
for the colors
and the textures
live for the laughs
whatever
whatever
double check your ropes
and start climbing
check your oil, your battery
and go
whatever whatever
take all the steps and
it might be a dance and
when a fly gets stuck in your web
bite it