BEAR WEATHER

The bear barometer reads snug in winter, stretch-sniff-lick in spring, and, as rhymed by Lillie Chaffin and brushed in by Helga Aichinger, it's as sensitive to the new coming as The Happy Day. And as intimate, with mother and baby bear, very round and very brown--""Sleeping through dark, sleeping through light,/ They never knew the day from night."" While opposite the alternating blue and white winterscape--""Snow blew left and snow blew right./ Snow blew around and around at night."" Until ""Snowflakes melted; ground peeped through. Streams started running; south winds blew""--and a great coral sun saturates one page, the two bears yawn cavernous coral yawns on the next. At the last they're busy with a honeycomb, oblivious of the bat moving into their winter den. Bear Weather bears watching--it's a beauty.