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Musée des Beaux-Arts - a poem by W.H.Auden On one of the blogs I follow Whistling which is such a marvellous potpourri of poetry, cooking,and everything else under the sun, but one name echoes from the past and that is e e cummings, who was'nt into capitals or punctuation by the way. But I'm not going to spout him in this instance but it brought up another memory of a poem by W.H.Auden, (something I did at college) the poem is really I suspect about the futility of our lives, but then he was a miserable creature... The legend Auden refers is of course Icarus who flew too close to the sun and got his wings burnt and fell to the sea below.
The painting by Breughul highlights the indifference of all those that may, or may not have been aware of the small tragedy of Icarus's downfall. Auden of course muses on this indifference, a reflection of the world today maybe, we are saturated by bad news and unable to take it all in, not necessarily an indifference to suffering but an overwhelming feeling that there is nothing to be done..... A photo from yesterday, whenever I am miserable, someone takes me down to a river, (not to drown me but for a soothing walk ;), the underwater world of plants never fail to ground me, especially the fish swimming or coming to the surface and creating ripples as they rise for insects.... ...

Soliloquoies of a Chalk Giant by Jeremy Hooker

Kinship by Seamus Heaney

Bog Queen - Seamus Heaney

Posted by thelma at Saturday, September 04, 2010 Blogs I potter around Followers are welcome