I take a wolf's rib and whittle it sharp at both ends and coil it up and freeze it in blubber and place it out on the fairway of the bears.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The speaker describes crafting a trap from a wolf's rib to lure bears, suggesting a cunning survival strategy.
- In plain terms
- Someone makes a sharp tool from bone and freezes it to catch bears in their path.
- What can you take from it?
- Survival often requires using the tools of one enemy to defeat another.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What tools do you repurpose in difficult situations?
- How do you use an opponent's strength against them?
Another view
The imagery is violent and specific to a hunter-gatherer context.
More from Galway Kinnell
The sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect l…
Permalink to quote #3 The appeal to heaven breaks off. The petals begin to fall, in self-forgiveness. It is a flower. On this mountainside it is dying.
Permalink to quote #2 A boy's hunched body loved out of a stalk The first song of his happiness, and the song woke His heart to the darkness and into the sadness of joy.
Permalink to quote #1
Related quotes
She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you - Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling quote #1 He was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip forever.
Laurence SterneLaurence Sterne quote #6 Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.
Thomas GrayThomas Gray quote #13