Ontological...

By Maggie Anderson...

This is going to cost you.

If you really want to hear a

country fiddle, you have to listen

hard, high up in its twang and needle.

You can't be running off like this,

all knotted up with yearning,

following some train whistle,

can't hang onto anything that way.

When you're looking for what's lost,

everything's a sign,

but you have to stay right up next to

the drawl and pull of the thing

you thought you wanted, had to

have it, could not live without it.

Honey, you will lose your beauty

and your handsome sweetie, this whine,

this agitation, the one you sent for

with your leather boots and your guitar.

The lonesome snag of barbed wire you have

wrapped around your heart is cash money,

honey, you will have to pay

 “Ontological” This poem is written by Maggie Anderson. “Ontological” this poem is a part of Maggie Anderson’s collection of poems A SPACE FILLED WITH MOVING which was published in 1992.

“Ontological,” uses the idiom of an Appalachian dialect, in contrast with the philosophical title (“of or relating to the nature of being”), to add layers of meaning.

Maggie Anderson starts the poem by saying that if you want to hear country's violin, if you want that happiness should come into your life then you will have to work hard for it. You will have to listen to the strings and needles. She says you can’t run away like this when you have loads of things lost. Then she expresses that just as we go behind whistle of the train, over here it means following the crowd. she says just by following what others are doing we don't have to land up doing something wrong. Anderson then says that when we are looking for what you have lost and are trying to find it, each new step will give you a new hint to find the lost thing. Anderson over here has made a nice contrast between lost and occurrence of something.

Then poet says that there will be many hurdles in your path. Many things will provoke you to take the wrong step and lose your goal. But you have to stay right next to it, and snatch away the thing you thought you wanted to achieve, you had to have and you would never be able to live without it.In this attempt of seeking happiness and in this hard work you will lose your beauty and your handsome loved one, this complaining cry and the agitation will be lost which you had sent for your leather boots and guitar. Finally Maggie say that the lonely, unexpected piece of thorny wire which means loneliness and sorrows which are wrapped around your heart like hurting wire is the cash money, for your happiness and you will have to pay for it. And throw your sadness away.