Thursday, February 21, 2013

Auden's Valentine

If it all goes to the same place
Wystan was wrong about suffering
in the sense that death
is also only transitional
in a world of appearances
like plowing a field or
tightening the rigging
in the sails of our ships
snapping in the harbor
we project our indifference
on the world in order to reject it
but why should death impress us
when all the tenderness of life
is in the moment moving on

1 comment:

William Keckler said...

This poem is painful to me but still beautiful. "Beautiful" is not a dirty word to me--like to so many. Of course, I know you could easily write a poem talking about the negative gestalt of what "beauty" is--or should I say Negative Capability. Is beauty the Taoist emptiness or is it filled? I have no idea. Both? It must be both?