My wife and I are a bit behind when it comes to TV. We have recently become enamored with Madame Secretary. We are on season three of six, and we just finished episode 18, entitled “Good Bones.” It gets its name from a poem that Jay reads at the end of the episode. I loved the poem and I want to remember it, and that’s exactly what a commonplace book is for.
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.