Wanderer

Let us speak about our enormous flaws as told to us
by others – accountants, wives before leaving –
about how we deceived ourselves, even our dogs
by ignoring their concerned pre-walk, tear-stained howls,
though they rested often on our chests
making sounds like old ships.

For there is only, but always, a small tunnel of escape
for forgiveness. As with any novel or film you hang
onto “character rights” and where you came from.
There’s not much to leave when you’re only fifteen, we are told.

My friend’s family in Warsaw during the war
was fed and kept alive by a German deserter
who roamed Europe like Odysseus, even
joining them in their escape, pretending to be mute
while they taught him Polish. A dissolved genealogy
let him cross borders and war zones with them,
finding a path through various armies.
He knew already the great engines of this world
do not run on faithfulness.

Without a homeland he was for a while
a father to their children.

And later, more than once, needing a passport
he married more than once.

With dialects and port-accented verbs
he could sing in four languages about departure.
He belonged still to himself at fifteen,
waiting for the later years to reach him.

Who had he become? He’d bunked beside Isaiah,
escaped judgement, remained as if impenitent.
He felt comforted only when – as with the dog –
it became difficult to know if accusations
meant damnation or contentment.

Michael Ondaatje’s new collection of poems, A Year of Last Things, will be published in March. His novel The English Patient received the Booker prize in 1992

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