Mama Grizzly vs. Real Grizzlies

Sarah Palin has been recently celebrating “Mama Grizzlies”—by which I think she means “women who are so mad that they’re not going to take it anymore.”  But has anyone noticed that she advocates policies that make life a lot harder for actual grizzlies? 

Whether through calling for drilling in the Alaskan National Reserve, denying the global warming that is melting the ice, pushing aggressively for more development (including Alaskan roads to nowhere), or hunting wolves by airplane, Palin is no friend to the grizzly habitat.  I therefore offer up an ecological version of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” that my father Scott Bates wrote in 1982.  Some of the topical allusions may be dated but it is scarily prescient and almost seems to have the former Alaska governor in mind.  It appeared in his ABC of Radical Ecology.  (Earlier we ran a poem from the same collection about Doctor Dolittle taking on an oil spill, which you can read here.)

Here’s my father’s account a modern-day Goldilocks and three annoyed grizzlies:

G IS FOR A LITTLE GIRL WITH LONG GOLDEN HAIR

who accidentally wandered into Bear Territory
for what did she stumble into by chance
but a GRIZZLY BEAR CAVE
in which nobody was home however
the three local residents having gone out for a walk
they had left their cave for a pre-dinner excursion
and were reveling in the beauties of the wilderness

So the little girl
cut down a lot of trees
and built herself A GREAT BIG HOUSE

NO she said
THIS HOUSE IS TOO BIG

So she cut down a lot more trees
and built herself a cute little
cozy little cottage
and landscaped the garden

NO she said
THIS HOUSE IS TOO LITTLE

So finally she found a beautiful mountain view
with good ski slopes (if she cut down enough trees)
and she built herself a condominium

YES she said
THIS HOUSE IS JUST RIGHT
and she moved in

Having spent most of the afternoon doing all this
she had worked up a good appetite
SHE WAS VERY HUNGRY
so she looked around for something to eat

First she tried the bears’ breakfast food
of nuts berries ants honey and wild crabapples

YECCHH she said
THIS GRANOLA IS TOO CRUNCHY

Next she tried the bears’ lunch food
of roots rice raisins raspberries and rutabaga

RRRRAUGH she said clutching her throat
this organic diet is great for my figure but who
needs food rationing in peace time

So finally she fixed herself a fancy dinner
of steak au poivre Champagne escargots baked Alaska and anchovy salad
MAIS OUI she said
CE DINER EST FORMIDABLE
and she ATE IT ALL UP

By this time she was feeling a bit weary so she
decided to hit the sack
and after pulling down the Venetian blinds to shut out the all-night lights in her two-acre parking lot
and after putting in her ear plugs to shut out the noise of her
neighbors’ stereos motorcycles helicopters and eternal arguments
and after drinking three nightcaps
smoking two joints
swallowing one sleeping pill
and watching a rerun of I Love Lucy on the TV
she fell asleep

Meanwhile the three grizzly bears were returning from their walk
They were all refreshed from watching the goldfinches
bounce about the goldenrod in the upper pastures and from
chasing butterflies among the buttercups in the
lower meadows and from picking blackberries in the lane and
blueberries in the bottoms and hungry enough to eat a haystack
WHEN SUDDENLY
they saw a huge floodlighted billboard saying
GOLDILOCKS’ GOLDEN SUNSET ACRES CONDOMINIUM
     EASY RATES APPLY WITHIN

And Papa Bear said
SOMEONE HAS BEEN CLEARCUTTING OUR FORESTS

and Mama Bear said
AND SOMEONE HAS BEEN STRIPMINING OUR MOUNTAINS

and Baby Bear said
AND SOMEONE HAS TURNED OUR BEAR TERRITORY INTO A SUPER-SUBURB AND A SKI SLUM AND A SHOPPING CENTER AND A GARBAGE DUMP AND HERE SHE IS!

And with that they confronted Goldilocks
who was too drunk and too stoned and too fast asleep
to notice that there were THREE FEROCIOUS GRIZZLY BEARS
standing
by her Simmons Beauty Rest Mattress with EXTREMELY
ANNOYED EXPRESSIONS on their fierce and fuzzy faces

which is why she didn’t wake up and scream and jump out of the window and run away as she was supposed to do
which made the three bears feel somewhat perplexed
as to what to do next
and since they didn’t know anything else to do
they ate her for dinner
which gave them three acute cases of acid indigestion
and three attacks of galloping gastritis
and three horrendous hangovers
and they quietly left for Mount McKinley National Park in Alaska
and they never came back

all of which points to the moral
that
IF YOU CAN’T BEAR IT ANY LONGER
BEAR NORTH

and also to the second moral
that
BAD LITTLE GIRLS whose conduct is TERRIBLE
are making our VERY NICE country UNBEARABLE
so you GOOD LITTLE GIRLS to be MERITORIOUS
BEWARE
and TAKE CARE
of those BEAR TERRITORIOUS