Poetry and Animals

OF HYBRIDITY AND THE HYBRID175

of both stories is the same. The poem itself gives no initial reason to
judge the hunter; like the ancient mariner, he does what he does seem-
ingly without forethought. However, the poem gives a powerful account
of the bear’s awareness of its own death.

Until one day I totter and fall—

fall on this

stomach that has tried so hard to keep up,

to digest the blood as it leaked in,

to break up

and digest the bone itself: and now the breeze

blows over me, blows off

the hideous belches of ill-digested bear blood

and rotted stomach

and the ordinary, wretched odor of bear,

blows across

my sore, lolled tongue a song

or screech, until I think I must rise up

and dance. And I lie still.

The poem presents a seemingly plausible account of becoming bear.
The “I” who subsequently “thinks” he awakens should be the hunter, but
it could be the hunter dreaming as bear, or the bear, or some new hybrid
version of the two. Like the ancient mariner, he appears doomed to
wander after his killing of the creature.

And one

hairy-soled trudge stuck out before me

the next groaned out,

the next,

the next,

the rest of my days I spend

wandering: wondering

what, anyway,