Michael Ondaatje - Wells

[tristanskye.livejournal.com]

MICHAEL ONDAATJE

 

Wells

 

 

i

 

The rope jerked up

so the bucket flies

into your catch

 

pours over you

 

its moment

of encasement

 

standing in sunlight

wanting more,

another poem please

 

and each time

recognition and caress,

the repeated pleasure

 

of finite things.

Hypnotized by lyric.

This year’s kisses

 

like driving a hundred times

from a moving train

into the harbour

 

like driving a hundred times

from a moving train

into the harbour

 

 

ii

 

The last Sinhala word I lost

was vatura.

The word for water.

Forest water.  The water in a kiss.  The tears

I gave to my ayah Rosalin on leaving

The first home of my life.

 

More water for her than any other

that fled my eyes again

this year, remembering her,

a lost almost-mother in those years

of thirsty love.

 

No photograph of her, no meeting

since the age of eleven,

not even knowledge of her grave.

 

Who abandoned who, I wonder now.

 

 

iii

 

In the sunless forest

of Ritigala

 

heat in the stone

heat in the airless black shadows

 

nine soldiers on leave

strip uniforms off

and dig a well

 

to give thanks

for surviving this war

 

A puja in an unnamed grove

the way someone you know

might lean forward

and mark the place

where your soul is

--always, the say,

near to a wound.

 

In the sunless forest

crouched by a forest well

 

pulling what was lost

out of the depth.

 

 

(from Handwriting: Poems, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2000)

 

 

 

Comments

[effbeye.livejournal.com]

God he's great. I'm reading his Collected Works of Billy the Kid right now, and it's really a masterpiece.

[binahboy.livejournal.com]

Saudade! Thanks ,
Does anyone have his Elimination Dance?, If yes, kindly post.

[tristanskye.livejournal.com]

am looking for ELIMINATION DANCE myself. will share if i find it. cheers.

[carnivalstars.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! I love I & II.

[tristanskye.livejournal.com]

THANKS EVERYONE, GLAD YOU LIKED IT! :)