Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later by Margaret Atwood
So here we are again, my dear,
on the same shore we set out from
years ago, when we were promising,
but minus - now - a lot of hair,
or fur or feathers, whatever.
I like the bifocals. They make you look
even more like an owl than you are.
I suppose we’ve both come far. But
how far are we truly, from where we started,
under the fresh-laid moon, when we plotted
to astound? When we thought
something of meaning could still be done
by singing, or won, like trophies.
I took the fences, you, the treetops, where we
hooted and yowled our carnivorous
fervid hearts out, and see,
we did get prizes: there they are,
a scroll, a gold watch, and a kissoff
handshake from the stand-in
for the Muse, who couldn’t come herself,
but sent regrets. Now we can say
flattering things about each other
on dust jackets. Whatever
made us think we could change the world?
Us and clever punct-
uation marks. A machine gun, now -
that would be different. No more unct-
uous adjectives. Cut straight to the verb.
Ars longa, mors brevissima. The life
of poetry breeds the lust
for action, of the most ordinary
sort. Whacking the heads off dandelions,
or bats or bureaucrats,
smashing car windows. Though
at least we’ve been tolerated,
or even celebrated - which meant
a brief caper in the transient glare
of the sawdust limelight,
and your face used later for fishwrap -
but most of the time ignored
by this crowd that has finally admitted
to itself it doesn’t give
much of a fart for art,
and would rather see a good evisceration
any day. You might as well have been
a dentist, as your father hoped. You
want attention, still? Take your clothes off
at a rush-hour stoplight, howl obscenities,
or shoot someone. You’ll get
your name in the paper, maybe,
for what it’s worth. In any case
where do we both get off?
Is this small talent we have prized
so much, and rubbed like silver
spoons, until it shone
at least as brightly as neon, really
so much better than the ability
to win the sausage-eating contest,
or juggle six plates at once?
What’s the use anyway
of calling the dead back, moving stones,
or making animals cry? I
think of you, loping along at night
to the convenience store, to buy your pint
of milk, your six medium eggs,
your head stuffed full of consonants
like lovely pebbles
you picked up on some lustrous beach
you can’t remember - my feather-
headed fool, what have you got
in your almost-empty pockets
that would lure even the lowliest mugger?
Who needs your handful
of glimmering air, your foxfire, your few
underwater crystal tricks
that work only in moonlight?
Noon hits them and they fall apart,
old bones and earth, old teeth, a bundleful
of shadows. Sometimes, I know, the almost-holy
whiteness rooted in our skulls spreads out
like thistles in a vacant lot, a hot powdery
flare-up, which is not a halo
and will return at intervals
if we’re grateful or else lucky, and
will end by fusing our neurons. Yet
singing’s a belief
we can’t give up.
Anything can become a saint
if you pray to it enough -
spaceship, teacup, wolf -
and what we want is intercession,
that iridescent ribbon
that once held song to object.
We feel everything hovering
on the verge of becoming itself:
the tree is almost a tree, the dog
pissing against it won’t be a dog
unless we notice it
and call it by its name: “Here, dog.”
And so we stand on balconies and rocky
hilltops and caterwaul our best,
and the world flickers
in and out of being,
and we think it needs our permission. We
shouldn’t flatter ourselves: really
it’s the other way around. We’re at
the mercy of any stray
rabid mongrel or thrown stone or cancerous
ray, or our own
bodies: we were born with mortality’s
hook in us, and year by year it drags us
where we’re going: down. But
surely there is still
a job to be done by us, at least
time to be passed; for instance, we could
celebrate inner beauty. Gardens.
Love and desire. Lust. Children. Social justice
of various kinds. Include fear and war.
Describe what it is to be tired. Now
we’re getting there. But this is much
too pessimistic! Hey, we’ve got
each other, and a roof, and regular
breakfasts! Cream and mice! For
our sort, elsewhere, it’s often worse:
a heaved boot, poisoned meat, or dragged
by the wings or tail off to some wall
or trench and forced to kneel
and have your brains blown out, splattering all over
that Nature we folks are so keen on -
in the company of a million others,
let it be said -
and in the name of what? What noun?
What god or state? The world becomes
one huge deep vowel of horror,
while behind those mildewed flags, the slogans
that always rhyme with dead,
sit a few old guys making money. So
honestly. Who wants to hear it?
Last time I did that number, honey,
the audience was squirrels.
But I don’t need to tell you.
The worst is, now we’re respectable.
We’re in anthologies. We’re taught in schools,
with cleaned-up biographies and skewed photos.
We’re part of the mug show now.
In ten years, you’ll be on a stamp,
where anyone at all can lick you. Ah
well, my dear, our leaky cardboard
gondola has brought us this far,
us and our paper guitar.
No longer semi-immortal, but moulting owl
and arthritic pussycat, we row
out past the last protecting
sandbar, towards the salty
open sea, the dogs’-head gate,
and after that, oblivion.
But sing on, sing
on, someone may still be listening
besides me. The fish for instance.
Anyway, my dearest one,
we still have the moon.
on the same shore we set out from
years ago, when we were promising,
but minus - now - a lot of hair,
or fur or feathers, whatever.
I like the bifocals. They make you look
even more like an owl than you are.
I suppose we’ve both come far. But
how far are we truly, from where we started,
under the fresh-laid moon, when we plotted
to astound? When we thought
something of meaning could still be done
by singing, or won, like trophies.
I took the fences, you, the treetops, where we
hooted and yowled our carnivorous
fervid hearts out, and see,
we did get prizes: there they are,
a scroll, a gold watch, and a kissoff
handshake from the stand-in
for the Muse, who couldn’t come herself,
but sent regrets. Now we can say
flattering things about each other
on dust jackets. Whatever
made us think we could change the world?
Us and clever punct-
uation marks. A machine gun, now -
that would be different. No more unct-
uous adjectives. Cut straight to the verb.
Ars longa, mors brevissima. The life
of poetry breeds the lust
for action, of the most ordinary
sort. Whacking the heads off dandelions,
or bats or bureaucrats,
smashing car windows. Though
at least we’ve been tolerated,
or even celebrated - which meant
a brief caper in the transient glare
of the sawdust limelight,
and your face used later for fishwrap -
but most of the time ignored
by this crowd that has finally admitted
to itself it doesn’t give
much of a fart for art,
and would rather see a good evisceration
any day. You might as well have been
a dentist, as your father hoped. You
want attention, still? Take your clothes off
at a rush-hour stoplight, howl obscenities,
or shoot someone. You’ll get
your name in the paper, maybe,
for what it’s worth. In any case
where do we both get off?
Is this small talent we have prized
so much, and rubbed like silver
spoons, until it shone
at least as brightly as neon, really
so much better than the ability
to win the sausage-eating contest,
or juggle six plates at once?
What’s the use anyway
of calling the dead back, moving stones,
or making animals cry? I
think of you, loping along at night
to the convenience store, to buy your pint
of milk, your six medium eggs,
your head stuffed full of consonants
like lovely pebbles
you picked up on some lustrous beach
you can’t remember - my feather-
headed fool, what have you got
in your almost-empty pockets
that would lure even the lowliest mugger?
Who needs your handful
of glimmering air, your foxfire, your few
underwater crystal tricks
that work only in moonlight?
Noon hits them and they fall apart,
old bones and earth, old teeth, a bundleful
of shadows. Sometimes, I know, the almost-holy
whiteness rooted in our skulls spreads out
like thistles in a vacant lot, a hot powdery
flare-up, which is not a halo
and will return at intervals
if we’re grateful or else lucky, and
will end by fusing our neurons. Yet
singing’s a belief
we can’t give up.
Anything can become a saint
if you pray to it enough -
spaceship, teacup, wolf -
and what we want is intercession,
that iridescent ribbon
that once held song to object.
We feel everything hovering
on the verge of becoming itself:
the tree is almost a tree, the dog
pissing against it won’t be a dog
unless we notice it
and call it by its name: “Here, dog.”
And so we stand on balconies and rocky
hilltops and caterwaul our best,
and the world flickers
in and out of being,
and we think it needs our permission. We
shouldn’t flatter ourselves: really
it’s the other way around. We’re at
the mercy of any stray
rabid mongrel or thrown stone or cancerous
ray, or our own
bodies: we were born with mortality’s
hook in us, and year by year it drags us
where we’re going: down. But
surely there is still
a job to be done by us, at least
time to be passed; for instance, we could
celebrate inner beauty. Gardens.
Love and desire. Lust. Children. Social justice
of various kinds. Include fear and war.
Describe what it is to be tired. Now
we’re getting there. But this is much
too pessimistic! Hey, we’ve got
each other, and a roof, and regular
breakfasts! Cream and mice! For
our sort, elsewhere, it’s often worse:
a heaved boot, poisoned meat, or dragged
by the wings or tail off to some wall
or trench and forced to kneel
and have your brains blown out, splattering all over
that Nature we folks are so keen on -
in the company of a million others,
let it be said -
and in the name of what? What noun?
What god or state? The world becomes
one huge deep vowel of horror,
while behind those mildewed flags, the slogans
that always rhyme with dead,
sit a few old guys making money. So
honestly. Who wants to hear it?
Last time I did that number, honey,
the audience was squirrels.
But I don’t need to tell you.
The worst is, now we’re respectable.
We’re in anthologies. We’re taught in schools,
with cleaned-up biographies and skewed photos.
We’re part of the mug show now.
In ten years, you’ll be on a stamp,
where anyone at all can lick you. Ah
well, my dear, our leaky cardboard
gondola has brought us this far,
us and our paper guitar.
No longer semi-immortal, but moulting owl
and arthritic pussycat, we row
out past the last protecting
sandbar, towards the salty
open sea, the dogs’-head gate,
and after that, oblivion.
But sing on, sing
on, someone may still be listening
besides me. The fish for instance.
Anyway, my dearest one,
we still have the moon.