[1326] Bearhug

Guest poem sent in by Alan DeMello <smokeyoulikeablunt@>

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came?

	-- Michael Ondaatje

This poem could be the poster-child for Deconstruction, it lends itself so
well. Everytime you think you have them all, another binary hits you in the
face, or skirts across your mind's eye. I haven't ever read anything else by
Ondaatje, but Bearhug makes me want to.

Alan

Links:

 Biography:
   http://mtmt.essortment.com/biographyofmac_rqzo.htm

 Collection of Ondaatje links:
   http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/ae/engml/friedman/ondaatje.htm

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From: Deepak Srinivasan <dsrinivasan2000@>

i scanned this poem because recently by chance i read parts of
micahel's "English Patient" and "Anils ghost". I think English Patient
got the bookers prize. While I find his prose work vaguely irritating
this poem was very good. Except that humorously,
how different his perception of bearhug and mine is. For me, mostly,
a bearhug reminds me of the "bare necessities" from jungle book(cartoon version),
one of my favorite disney movies and a thoroughly dreamy, utopian vision.
/Deepak