Good Bones

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

(From Waxwing, 2016)

Yes, and yes.  That’s the answer to this poem.  Is the narrator cynical or hopeful?  The cynical narrator knows the world is terrible, or at least 50% terrible.  You can read the ending two ways:  the narrator’s contempt for the eternal optimist realtor character, who hypes the neighborhood eyesore in the hopes of making a sale. Or the narrator as the realtor who does have hope that the monstrosity can be rehabbed.  But she does not have faith, which she inadvertently conveys with her “right?”  That question “right? You could make this place beautiful” betrays a desperate hope that maybe someone? Someone? can redeem the ugliness of life. Because there are good bones.

And there are good bones in this world.  The original design, the essential structure, is good.  But decay has certainly set in.  The narrator doesn’t want to point this out to her children, because she wants to hold out hope for good, but she doesn’t have much hope.  My response to the realtor is my response to the narrator: “Yes.”  Yes, this place could be beautiful; it does have good bones, but it will take work.  

This work is the Christian mission.  It’s what we are here for.  As N.T. Wright says, it’s God’s “putting right project for the world” and shows itself in the following ways that preview heaven:  “in healing, in justice, in beauty, in celebrating the new creation and lamenting the continuing pain of the old.” The poet says “You could make this place beautiful” and these are ways to do that.  So look for ways you can heal, bring justice, create beauty, celebrate, and lament.  Because there are good bones underneath all the ugly, and we could make this place beautiful.