Michael Ondaatje
Through
Beneath the downstairs
lamp of not sleep,
in the ambered quiet of near despair,
I wait the darkness out with Ondaatje,
a year of last things,
the intervals between plot
that his poetry becomes.
Just mood.
Just tone.
Subjunctive love affairs.
The day that was
isn’t anymore.
The day that is forecast can
not be foreseen, but still,
half lying and half sitting here,
head in the unfluffed folds of a faded yellow pillow,
hands on the pages of Ondaatje,
I remember all those years ago,
when maybe I might have been something,
and when a friend, believing in that possibility,
slipped into my hands
Ondaatje’s running in his family,
an inscription made out to me
in script as sensuous as
no available simile.
He wouldn’t remember, but
I do:
Ondaatje the beginning.
Ondaatje through.
oh my, what HAVE I Done....I believe I will be captured by your writing and follow your lead to who knows where!!! Just opened Ondaatje's memoir, Running in the Family and will be watching The English Patient tonight! You have great power in your words....shaping hours for others...that's a great power, my dear.
The title, the movement - yes, so good.