THE DAINTY MONSTERS
Michael
Ondaatje
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The Respect of Landscapes
The skies and forms from my muted landscape
had little of the physique of animals,
metallic they centred outside me—
the splayed yawns, the eyes
at eye level always.
A world of white and black and dark scabbed trees.
And you grew up in North Toronto
on silent roads where few dogs
were run over.
And in summers, you, unwebbed of clothes,
cut the long grass and hurled
yourself from sand to lake
till water curled at your feet
and you looked back on twelve shades of green.
And I, to translate myself
into this colour world,
can do so only by taking the egoism
of cigarette cartonned birds,
and becoming like them the centre.
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