The Gut that Hits Ya in the Gut-- Kinnell's The Bear

I told myself that I would read all the assigned works before I would write a reflection--I'd pick the one that would stand out before all competitors. Well, I've read two of the pieces so far and I find myself at my computer. 

I think I am reading about animal death too much..or would that be too little? Before this reading I responded strongly to George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant. I make sure to read these stories on animal mortality 1. alone and 2. slowly. And while I am always brought to tears, I enjoy these stories the most because of the lavish, luxurious sadness. I'm not brought to tears easily so these reactions are like...gifts? No. More like pleasant surprises. 

Tonight my tears' muse is The Bear by Galway Kinnell. I first paused at "lung-colored" in the first stanza but my reaction seemed simple curiosity. Good job Kinnell, I liked that. Ya got one point so far. Then I really disliked the main character; while I knew that his behavior was wild in a natural way, I couldn't come to terms with his brutishness. I cringed at "I lie out/ dragging myself forward with bear-knives in my fists" and his description of the animal slowly dying in front of him. 

It was during the 6th part that I actually started a good, slow cry. (Find it here.) To think about all the stomach has done for the bear, everything it had gone through. It was not an organ, it was an old friend by (or in) the bear's side. There was even a tinge of maternal nature in there--the stomach was working so ferociously to try to digest that which was killing it. And at the very end of it all, the descriptions so easily felt, so easily recognized, were the scents of its failure. "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..." It was not wretched, it was so lovely and alive and loved. There was a whole system for the sole purpose of processing the energy for the bear to keep going and keep living. And then all that was left was a "rotted stomach" and a "wretched odor" and I could not handle it. I read the last part and didn't even think about it. I went back to the 6th.