Sam McGee Argues with his Box of Authentic Ashes

Happy Canada Day, Yukon!

Sam McGee Argues with His Box of Authentic Ashes

It is rumoured that Sam McGee once ran into a young man selling the authentic ashes of Sam McGee, the cremated hero of “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” by Yukon poet Robert W. Service. Amused, he bought them, because how many men could say they bought their own ashes?

I was offered the chance to buy a piece of myself
the other day, and so I did. I came in a small bag,
which I found very saddening and undignified,
so I bought myself a nice hand-carved wooden box—
and I carefully sifted myself into it.

And I wondered, half in morbid amusement,
which part of myself I had purchased—the arms
of a road builder, the bad luck as a gold panner,
the sedate life of a married farmer, a churchgoer.
Was it the best parts of my life, or the worst?

I opened the box to examine myself up close—
to see what kind of man I was—the fine grain of me,
the coarseness, the smell of my life all burned up—

—when I was surprised to hear a voice come from the box—
like an excited street-corner barker. “What a treasure you hold
in your hand! What a great life you have purchased!
A lucky man is he who holds the ashes of Sam McGee!”

“Oh really,” I chuckled. “Tell me about Sam McGee,
this treasure.”

And, with a raucous, carnie shout, he quoted the poem—
the life story of Sam McGee, as written by Robert W. Service—
and unflattering, unmanly, untrue portrait of a Sam McGee
that never existed. It was just a name that Robert Service,
the damn Yukon poet, snatched up from the bank register
where he worked, needing a name to rhyme with Tennessee.

It was my name he snatched from that register I signed.
So I got to be the wimpy, whiny complainer, frozen solid
on a Christmas Day, stuffed into the boiler of a derelict
paddle wheeler, and brought back to life—briefly—in the heat
of the boiler fire. “Since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee,
it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

“Stop!” I told the Ashes, as I had told every man, woman
and child I ever met, “That. Isn’t. Sam McGee!”

The Ashes, however, disagreed. “Why not?”

“Because for one thing, I’m Sam McGee—and I’m from Ontario.”

The Ashes drifted in thought for a moment. “Who wants to be Sam McGee from
Ontario? It doesn’t even rhyme.”

“It doesn’t matter if it rhymes; it’s the truth. I’m Sam McGee! I didn’t take a
mushing trip on Christmas Day! I never whimpered about the cold! I was never
frozen solid! I was never stuffed in a boiler! I never came back to life!”

The Ashes said, “Well, what did you do?”

I was caught off guard, I’ll admit. Always defending
myself against the fame of the false Sam McGee, saying
who I wasn’t; what I didn’t do; what never happened to me.
I hadn’t really—practiced—my own biography. And I stuttered
some events I believed important in my own life, a beautiful,
settled, prosperous life with family and farm.

And the more I talked, the more I was tempted to embellish,
to make things rhyme—to swath a coat of brightly coloured paint
on the history of my life. But I didn’t. I was true to my life,
every mundane thing.

But the Ashes, the true barker of the living world,
asked me, “Wouldn’t you rather be Sam McGee from Tennessee?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said, and I was strong at first.

But the Ashes talked about immortality.
My name was on the tongues of bards across the world
and would be for hundreds of years. I was in the homes
of millions and millions of readers. I would be remembered
for a sort of Christmas Day resurrection,
the ability to withstand the fire,
to be renewed by it—
oh, the ashes got terribly metaphorical and metaphysical.

“No one knows of Sam McGee from Ontario—
and no one will. But you can choose to be
the Sam McGee of Robert W. Service and be
remembered forever—and isn’t being remembered
more important than being true?”

I quivered, even shivered.
To have passed through this world making no mark
bigger than a few stories my children will remember—
compared to that of a life that entertained millions
in a story unlike any other—even untrue—
what would I do?

The Ashes, sensing victory, roared, “What has the truth
ever done for anyone? It’s really not that catchy.
What you need is a good story.”

“Story,” the box whispered, “is a light—
whether it shines on you or burns you up,
it’s still a light everyone can see.
And in this world of unnoticed billions,
there’s a light shining on you, Sam McGee.
Deny Ontario, and be from Tennessee!”

And I thought of my life, and I thought of my wife, and I looked at my ashen friend,
then “Here,” said I with a sudden cry, “is the way this story will end.”

I would be Sam McGee from Ontario,
but I would keep Sam McGee from Tennessee
on my bedside, dead, cremated, a reminder
that six billion people and their happiness was not
worth my name, a reminder that a good life didn’t have
to be one that was recited on a stage, that bliss
didn’t have to be shared like the morning news,
that I could allow Sam McGee from Tennessee
to rest in peace in a box forever. I didn’t have to compete
with Sam McGee—
I just had to ignore him.

But sometimes, at night, I can hear the Ashes whisper through the wooden lid.
In the dark, their voices say, “it’s not too late to become someone GREAT!”

But I turn over in bed and smile.

These ashes are nothing special. Ashes say that to everyone.

______________________

This poem was written and performed as part of the Arts in the Park Heritage sessions, sponsored by Music Yukon, Yukon Historical Society, and Yukon Heritage, Whitehorse, Yukon, August 2014. I have so much fun performing this piece.