Vista

Nov 4 2017

The man who studied bears

lowered his voice when he said

he found it uncanny

how they seemed to select only dens

with a commanding view

a pleasing vista.

He had observed this, incidentally, in a life of study,

a thing thoroughly unscientific

but what he wished were true;

that they preferred to awaken

from months of addled slumber

looking out on something beautiful.

That these resourceful omnivores

who stink of wet fur

and carrion breath

and animal musk,

possess an aesthetic sense

that serves no purpose

but simple pleasure.

Like us, another clever creature, whose life is more

than mere survival;

living in our heads,

dabbing paint

on illuminated walls

in the sunless depths of caves.

So the mother bear

lolling at peace, as her cubs are suckling

looks out as if she were resting

on the seventh day

and pronounces the world good;

wet snow coming down

in a cold late spring,

a low but warming sun,

the gurgling sound of streams.

This observation has stuck in my mind for years, something I must have heard on a nature documentary; and ever since, something I someday meant to write a poem about – but until now never did.

What brought me back to this was a piece in the latest Atlantic (Nov 2017) about Thoreau's Journal, on which he spent the rest of his life after his more celebrated 2 year sojourn at Walden Pond: an intellectual journey of close observation of nature; an expression of his insatiable desire to understand how the world works. You have to trust the careful observer. And it is only through consistent disciplined observation that the telling patterns emerge. In this regard, Jane Goodall also comes to mind. As a young woman, she was also a brilliant and meticulous observer, but one who was untrained – and unindoctrinated – in the orthodox objectivity of academic science. She had to learn early on that animals were to be regarded as objects, not sentient beings; and that no matter what she saw, any hint of anthropomorphization would undermine her credibility as a scientist. So she learned to write dry objective pieces, until in later life she found her own voice and was able to write authentically about our closest primate relatives.

Bears get a bad press. They are depicted as ruthless man-eating carnivores, while the truth is (at least about the Black Bears who live here; I can't speak for Grizzlies or Polar Bears) they're largely vegetarian, guard their distance from people, and evolved – in the era of giant carnivores like sabre-toothed tigers – not as predators but as prey, and so have a prey animal's instinct for retreat and concealment. At the admitted risk of romanticizing a formidable and potentially dangerous creature, they are gentle giants, I suppose; except for the rare rogue male, or the injured or starving, or a highly aroused and threatened mother. The First Nations revered them. And we – the settler peoples of North America – admire them as well.

Of course, if the naturalist's observation is true, there is another explanation: that a commanding height is safer; that at altitude, the weather more stable. Or perhaps the best den sites are found in sparser places. Or something suitably scientific like that. But I prefer to think that bears have an intrinsic aesthetic sense. That beauty is universal. That life isn't only about survival and reproduction. 

(As I was posting this, I noticed that there is another poem by the same name. The attached blurb refers to this same observation. Back in May 2015, I put it this way:  "We are attracted to views, prefer to occupy the high ground. Perhaps this is aesthetic. Or perhaps it has to do with power. I recall hearing a biologist comment on bears’ selection of denning spots. He had noticed something odd, and was wondering if one reason they choose the sites they do is for the view; because they often seemed to have spectacular outlooks. All else being equal, perhaps they do notice the view. As usual, animals are more like us than we imagine. Or perhaps we’re more like them!")