Incident at Glacier Park

Two summer tourists sat in their lone car at a Glacier National Park overlook, admiring the sunset splendor in the Montana peaks. Gazing far out and long down through the oncoming dark, each saw something—a shape—something approaching in rear and sideview mirrors: not a person but a looming staggering hulk, shaggy, lumbering, stupendous, wavering, clumsy but closing in, an enormous bulk.

“I’m shutting the windows,” he said, but she re-opened hers and aimed her camera straight at the massive hump-necked beast as he drew parallel, turning his head toward her just then, his whole form abreast when she clicked, a full gratifying action shot, as far as she could tell, and he—fell! collapsed in one imploded heap of fur and crumpled flesh, directly down, not three feet away from their car. 

“You just killed a bear,” her husband shouted, “with your instamatic flash! You must have scared him silly, with lightning in a box, given him one of those rare heart attacks an animal can get from sudden fear, even a giant grizzly bear, and you plain up-and-down killed him.”

“Maybe,” she tried weakly, “he just fainted.” 

As Unbelievable As

No, I'm not talking
about walking,
though standing or moving upright
is a wonderment. Breathing, then? Yes,
another marvel – intricate, ingenious,
no question. But to have lived and seen,
what in all of life, save love, surpasses sight?
To have had no other joy
would justify each history.
Radiant light! And prism'd light–
colors, my god the colors and shades
and shapes and objects, one face...
none of it, none of it could have been
imagined when all is said
and done.
Ah then, that done:
to be gone,
to have seen it all
and, then, not to see a-tall?
To lose the splendor of that vault above
or, down to earth, anyplace,
the corner of a familiar shore,
some grass, a hill, a cove,
or the view
of you
walking toward me or standing just so, before,
gently breathing, luminous, stark
but then – like him the reader now hiding over there,
and her also afraid
and me too here,
all together, about to fade
into the redundant dark?
and cease,
and vision cease,
and then, just there, that tree?
To have had astonishment so brief.
Death is as unbelievable as life. 

The Kangaroo

People make fun of the kangaroo. She’s such a thingamajibbit, with an outsized head and planks for feet that look like sea-going flippers. She looks like a hodgepodge redundant hare, inviting people’s incredulous stare. She inspires derision, even revulsion? Well, if she could talk, she might say something in the following vein:

“You are the one who is really strange, without pelt, without feathers, and coming in so many different colors and shades of skin, it’s hard to know what body you’re in, making our little ’roos afraid. And with your funny hats and unnatural glasses, you think you’re the creature who passes for normal? Give us a break! With umbrellas, cameras, and all sorts of wires on you, you’re the world’s living oddity, nobody else.

Moral: Take a really good look at you—maybe it’s you who ought to be in a zoo.

The Shrew

Eyes still closed, the shrew said to her mate, “Get up, lazy lout, you’re late for foraging. Get going now.”

“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, look who’s still dormant while I’ve already gotten up and put on my shirt.”

“Then don’t just stand there, stop the jawing and go. That’s you, always hemming, always hawing. And you are,” she added mysteriously.

“I’m what?” 

“A monkey’s uncle, and grand-uncle of man. That was no slip of speech—you were bragging, and for the worst reason. So much began to go wrong when your side of the family evolved into simian and then humankind. Our side,” she said imperiously, “never would have started that whole disastrous line. Whatever prompted you and yours to go climb a tree?”

“Probably trying to get away from the nagging, scoffing of your whole side,” he murmured.

“I heard that crack,” she cried, “insinuating that I’m a genetic scold? when all I am is a necessary corrector, wearing myself out for your own good. O, I need to lie here, you’re giving me one of my migraines. I’ll die without a fit appreciator or provider. O, you!”

“I didn’t do a word!”

“Listen to yourself, how you get mixed up, the same old jabbering fool, and if I don’t stop you, you’ll go on carping, carping and harping, harping and carping—I don’t know how I bear it! Just go! That’ll stop your incessant nagging torrent.”

Moral: Whenever someone is after you, repeatedly and hotheadedly, too, there’s not the least doubt it’s themselves they are really talking about.

Hong Kong

A sleek vain superior woman of the west, wearing a slit sheath of China gown, moves, carefully coif’d, elegant, in undulant progress to the dining room of a posh Hong Kong restaurant. She cradles a toy poodle at her side and does not ask permission, but assumes her right to do anything she wants anywhere she goes.

Her rich and witful husband, on whose arm she leans ever so lightly, not for support but for the regal manner of it, says, “Choose a table near a waiter,” and they proceed, in pomp and circumstance, to dine. And sure enough, they are served at once, by captain and subalterns, by attentive minions who leave nothing to chance, there at their table laid for kings—and queens. A waiter gestures, indicating the dog, and she grandly hands him her “Poof,” and off he takes it somewhere. Seated on her velvet-cushion chair, she subsides, not especially thrilled but demure, not outwardly delighted but composed, serene in her gown, her jewels, her skin, and surveys the opulent room she is in—opalescent chandeliers, tablecloth, chopsticks, added appurtenances (knives, forks, spoons) for her sterling special appearance.

Sitting erect with prerogative, almost stiff, she says her thank-you’s when hors d’oeuvres are served, with her barest flicker of a smile, condescending to the start of her prolonged meal. Servers bring little dainty dishes—and ginger and coriander, soy sauce, other spices. And pork and veal, and more to come. And always the steaming pure white rice. How nice.

A long ensuing exotic meal, entrée after entrée, and then the piece de résistance, something exceptional to eat, accompanied by lichée nuts, curry powder, sweetmeats and concluding side-plates, and ever-present tea. The husband pays the bill. They rise. She asks for “Poof.” The table-captain arrives, with eyebrows raised: the dog was served with carrots, all buttered and braised.

Moral: In this world of little pets and people, you may not be helped but, finally, severely hampered if you are cuddled and curried and over-pampered.