And in This Corner...

I've really enjoyed this discussion. I thought your comments on Tuesday were excellent, and they have led to equally-thoughtful posts.

One thing that I have been thinking about, and it is something you (Amber and Katelin in particular) have been alluding to, is that just as human suffering often goes unseen by others, it is also true that human love or human charity "must run its course / Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot." In fact, one could argue that acts of love and kindness are often most sincere when they do take place "in a corner," where perhaps no one ever knows about them except for the person(s) being helped and, of course, the one trying to alleviate suffering. It isn't easy to turn the ship around or park the plow when no one is looking over our shoulder.

In my view, one of the truest--and most condemning--lines of the poem is "But for him it was not an important failure." The greatest tragedy of human suffering, apart from the suffering itself, is that we often don't care about it unless we perceive it as directly affecting us. In another of his poems, perhaps his greatest poem ("September 1, 1939"), Auden writes, "We must love one another or die." In so many ways that is absolutely true.

I will be back to post some writing prompts for next week. Look for those late tomorrow morning.

-D