Good Bones

This week, discussion has turned to ways to renew patient care, education, and research in the wake of COVID-19.  We are cautiously re-opening the doors and windows of our metaphoric house, and re-imagining the floor plan.  The process brings to mind Maggie Smith’s Good Bones, which is about the human ability to create the beautiful from the terrible.    

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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.