Paul Vermeersch
Notes Toward a Lexicon of the Language of the Bear
I
In its own language its name means:
I walk slowly on hillsides
and sleep with a bellyful
of pleasing berries,
pink flesh, and brains
I dream of love vulgar
and gorgeous beside the rush
of rivers born of glacial ice
and I shun the times of no
plenty, when all is dark
and white and the blossoms
do not love the red fruit into being.
This is the simplest word in its language
and the first one it learns.
II
The bear does not have a word for regret
but the nearest equivalent would be:
I am not proud
to have gone to the end of the world
and eaten garbage there
in dumps among the naked and the thin
when I could not last the winter.
This word is often thought but seldom
spoken among the strong.
III
If you want to say I love you
in the bearish tongue say:
You need not fear me
and translated literally
the word for solitude is:
This side of the mountain is mine.
