Lets Eat Poetry

I wrote this essay last year and though I'd share. For some reason I feel like a poem, and that I could live off the stuff...something about the autumn crispness and the promise of apples.


Astragaloi
by Mark Jarman

We know there must be consciousness in things,
In bits of gravel pecked up by a hen
To grind inside her coop, and spider silk
Just as it hardens stickily in air,
And even those things paralyzed in place,
The wall brick, the hat peg, the steel beam
Inside the skyscraper, and lost, forgotten,
And buried in ancient tombs, the toys and games.
Those starry jacks, those knucklebones of glass
Meant for the dead to play with, toss and catch
Back of the hand and read the pattern of,
Diversions to beguile the endless time,
Never to be picked up again...They're thinking,
Surely, all of them. They are lost in thought.


Mark Jarman’s Knucklebones

“Astragaloi” by Mark Jarman is a poem which strongly suggests that “there must be consciousness in things.” Jarman has written the poem in one single stanza of 14 lines, which calls to mind a sonnet, although there is no rhyme scheme which would place the poem in that category. The speaker explores the idea that inanimate objects might be thinking, that “They are lost in thought” and he uses references to ancient Roman and Greek history in order to articulate that idea.
For example, the word astragaloi (singular astragalos), is an ancient Greek word holding several meanings. One of the meanings is “knucklebones”—a divinatory game or practice which included a person throwing the bones of sheep of goats and divining the future from the position of the thrown bones. In the ancient Greek language, the word looks like this:
. The other meaning for this word is simply “knucklebones” without the implication of predicting the future. It seems as though the speaker is referring to the first meaning, since the speaker says, “those knucklebones of glass / Meant for the dead to play with.” The speaker also brings to mind the Roman sense of numina (singular numen) which was the Roman peoples’ idea of inanimate objects having an essence or presence in the world. For the Roman people, everything that existed had a spirit, even if the object is a rock, or glass knucklebones. The speaker articulates this as the objects are named off: “And even those things paralyzed in place, / The wall brick, the hat peg, the steel beam.” In fact, all the objects he names hang off the first line where the speaker declares that “We know there must be consciousness in things” and then describes those things.
In that first line, the “must” stands out to the readers who are almost forced to take this poem as fact. The poem does not ask the question “is there consciousness in things?” but instead assumes that there is, and then reflects on that assumption. The speaker does not attempt to teach the readers anything new about this concept, but the simple reflection does not leave the readers the same after they read the poem as before the poem was read. After the last line, “Surely, all of them. They are lost in thought” leaves us with the nagging feeling that we should be gentle with our belongings, and handle them with care or we might anger the numina and our favorite shoes might walk away from us or our childhood games might suddenly decide to find new owners.