Good Bones- March 22 2026

 

Good Bones

March 22 2026

The old house needs work.

It seems like one thing after another,

and I’m the little Dutch boy

with his finger in the dyke;

just a matter of time

until more leaks geyser out

my arms can't reach

or fingers fit. 

It gets harder to console myself

with the old canard

that the place has good bones.

So did the Neanderthals, after all,

who were sturdy enough

but still succumbed to us,

their second cousins

who were frailer but more nimble. 

Is it character, then, that keeps me at it,

the tradition,

the proportion and restraint,

the settled look?

Rather than faddish

or idiosyncratic,

a house with the timelessness 

of the little black dress

and simple string of pearls;

immune to fashion,

even contemptuous of it.

And a good fit for me;

a man of a certain age

who’s already older than this house.

Who's always been out of step

with the latest trend

and current zeitgeist.

And who approves of things built to last,

or made to repair

instead of throw away.

Even if all he’s good for

is duct tape and spackle

and another coat of paint. 

Who knows what will happen to the house when I’m gone.

I picture an empty lot

feral lawn

and broken bottles of beer

in among the weeds.

The old place

unlamented and unremembered,

and all the lives it once contained

gone as well.

And me

as if I’d never been there

keeping up appearances

and trying to improvise. 

Fooling myself

that good bones are enough

when the flesh weakens

and the spirit tires.

I have two old places to maintain.  And it truly does feel like one thing after another. One can’t help seeing them as a metaphor for ageing bodies:  in both cases, it seems there’s always something! Too bad I’m not at all handy. And that good people are hard to get.

 Houses are one of the few things that are built better now than in the past, and I can see the advantage of new. Cars, too; except that modern cars are so complicated there’s that much more to go wrong.  Fast fashion is disposable. Technology soon succumbs to obsolescence. While appliances aren’t worth repairing   . . . even if they are reparable!