Coincidentally the PBS program “Story in the
Public Square” last Saturday did an interview with Maggie Smith, the poet whose
most famous poem is “Good Bones”. It was published three days after the Orlando
shooting and the poem was shared on Facebook and Twitter in response. Ms. Smith said
that every time there is a tragedy the poem goes viral again. How very strange
that only a few hours after watching this interview 2 more mass shootings
occurred in America and one can assume that the poem is again being shared even
as I am now doing.
I had never heard of MotionPoems
before but here is a link to this one. It will make you appreciate the poem so
much more, particularly if you are not given to poetry reading usually.
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.
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