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If you ever, ever, ever meet a grizzly bear,
You must never, never, never ask him where
He is going,
Or what he is doing;
For if you ever, ever, dare
To stop a grizzly bear,
You will never meet another grizzly bear.
Photograph:grizzly at Fishcreek(Canada) by Hidehiro Otake (lager image)
Grizzly Bear
Most people think that the grizzly got his name because of his gray or silver-tipped fur, but in old travelers' tales he is described as 'grisly,' meaning horrible, frightening. He is not only the largest and strongest of bears, but the most ferocious, so it is fortunate that nowadays he is not met very often. (Mary Austin)
Mary Austin (1868 - 1934)
Writer, poet, naturalist, storyteller and feminist. On the other hand she worked collecting Amerindians' stories and poems, and translated them into English or re-expressed them in English, or wrote by herself inspired by them. When she taught children in California she noticed that the children hadn't had their own songs, and she made(wrote and sang) poems and songs with the children. She selected the poems from those works and published as a book called "The Children Sing in the Far West" in 1928. "Grizzly Bear" is from the book. She settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico In 1924. She passed away there after having lived for ten years in her adobe house which she much loved.
* Happa-no-Kofu is publishing Mary Austin's work "The Deer-Star - Amerindian Songs" in August, 2005 (drawings by Yukari Miyagi). The poem "The Deer-Star" is included also in the book of "The Children Sing in the Far West" as Songs of the California coast.
Hidehiro Otake
Born in 1975, Otake graduated with a degree in sociology from Hitotsubashi University. As a member of a mountaineering club, he has enjoyed climbing and stream fishing in northeastern Japan, and has traveled around Nepal, Patagonia and the Kamchatka peninsula. In May 1999, he headed to the northern Minnesota in search of wolves. Since then, he has captured the wildlife, color, the forms of nature and the various phases of the forest as photographs made in the North Woods. Otake's work has been shown as an exhibition and featured in a magazine article.
Website: http://www.hidehiro-otake.net/
Copyright 1928 by Mary Austin
Photograph Copyright by Hidehiro Otake
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