We see what we want to see

I like poetry, I think it's quite intriguing although it is hard for me to understand sometimes. The first time I read "Musee des Beaux Arts", I just read through the poem. I didn't even see the picture by it. Well I did but i didn't realize it was tied to the poem. So at first read, I was a little lost. But because I didn't have a picture to look off of, I was able to imagine it myself. Which afterwards I realized I kind of preferred, because it was what I initially thought, not a picture to tell me what to imagine. So initially what I understood from that poem was, that sometimes people are going through the hardest trial(s) in their life, and need some assistance or just guidance, and no one even glances their way. "The ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, but for him it was not an important failure;". To me that is saying, many people are too caught up in their own lives to worry about someone else's problems. They pretend like the person falling is not even there. Perhaps they are waiting for someone to reach out to them before they reach out to someone else. At the beginning of the poem it reads, "About suffering they were never wrong...they understood its human position;". Perhaps this means they know what it's like to suffer immensely. Or maybe suffering takes the form of a human when it is in full attack mode. Or maybe the suffering becomes a part of their human body and that's why they understand it so well.
Once I realized the poem was relating to the picture beside it, it helped me peice together some other things. Regarding the falling of Icarus and his legs going into the water. It made more sense, but I felt like perhaps I could've lived without the paintings.