What messages are you resisting today?

Things to Think

Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.




Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.





When someone knocks on the door,
Think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time,
Or that it’s been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

 Robert Bly, Morning Poems

INDIANAPOLIS – A wild black bear that’s become increasingly brazen while roaming far northern Indiana for more than a month may need to be tranquilized for authorities to capture the animal and return it to Michigan, a state biologist said Tuesday.





The bear has damaged garbage cans and bird feeders, climbed onto patios and porches and even pounded on the doors of several homes in the Michigan City area, leaving behind muddy paw prints and nervous residents.





“He’s now becoming a bit of a problem bear. He’ll come up on porches, close to houses, sometimes looking in windows, and scare people a little bit more. He’s now kind of expecting things from people,” [IN DNR biologist] Veverka said.





The DNR remains hopeful that it will be able to trap the bear in one of two barrel traps staff have set up with doors that close when the animals seizes the bait inside.

If those traps don’t capture the bear and DNR staff can’t use lights, firecrackers or rubber bullets to drive the bear back across the Michigan state line, Veverka said the “last resort” would be using a gun that fires tranquilizer darts to sedate the animal.

“Our focus is not on tranquilizing him — that’s just one of our options,” he said.