Sometimes — Summary

Mike StoneContemplative

Sometimes

If I don’t have anything to do I wonder whether there’s some silence That hasn’t been honked away by horns Some hungry tuft of earth That hasn’t been keep off the grassed Or asphalt lain

Some woman that hasn’t been my wifed.

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A speaker with idle time on their hands starts wondering whether anything is left untouched. The poem's wish is for a world that hasn't been used up: a patch of silence not drowned out by car horns, a scrap of earth not fenced off or paved over.

The grammar gives the game away. Ordinary words get bent into verbs and passives: "keep off the grassed," "my wifed." The signs and rules that claim land have turned into something done to the land, and the last line carries that over to a woman. She is something that has been "wifed," claimed and labelled like the lawn. The final line, set apart on its own, lands with a small jolt, and its meaning is open. It could be a rueful, slightly dark joke, or it could suggest the speaker sees marriage as one more kind of ownership.

The mood is restless and wistful, with a dry humour underneath. Boredom turns into a quiet longing for something wild and unclaimed.

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