Soundings
June 26 2016


The house had good bones,
a sound roof, firm foundation
beams of old-growth oak.

So when we stripped the wallpaper, layers of paint
sheetrock, plaster, lathe, 
dissecting down, age-by-age
like a mortician exposing flesh,
we found pipes of lead, frayed electric
seeping wetness, rot.
Sawdust 
thronging with ants.

Old papers, as insulation
in the nooks and crannies of walls.
The local broadsheet, day after day
preserved against all odds,
documents, diaries, journals
letters better-off burned. 

So the house has not aged well.
While time has mercifully softened
the dark culpable thoughts
of her dead inhabitant;
the writer, anonymous
her subjects
forgotten, and gone.
Confessions no longer crimes. 

It’s good to be reminded
that the guilt and regret
the pain and the dread
will eventually be rendered null,
that distance cleanses all.

Good to imagine
that you could gut the interior, pick-axe the rot
tear-down to virgin wood,
reassured
her structure is worthy
her bones still good.



I suppose this poem could be read as the yin and yang of nihilism:  in its negative sense, the feeling of futility that comes from knowing that all one’s passion and intensity will -- in the fullness of time --  be inevitably rendered meaningless; and in its positive sense, the  humility that comes from the nihilist’s amused detachment,  recognizing an individual’s  insignificance in a vast indifferent universe. 

More narrowly, I think the poem is about self-forgiveness and self-acceptance; about a flawed human being -- all of us, that is -- recognizing her own essential worthiness. 

I intentionally confused pronouns here:  both the writer and the house are referred to as “her”. Which may be a bit too clever for the good of the poem. Because the metaphor should come through clear enough: as usual, I need to trust the reader more, not hit him over the head! 

I was unsure about the 3 repetitions of  “good” in the last 2 stanzas. I could have used “nice” -- “as in nice to be reminded”; and I could have used “sound” -- as in “her bones still sound”. But “nice” sounds like an act of politeness, while “good” sounds more like a necessary and welcome corrective. And “good” in the last line offers a useful call-back to the opening, which gives the poem a satisfying sense of closure.