Forsaken Cry (After Auden)

The old masters were never wrong about suffering
though we continuously stumble.  
We witness atrocities, then look away  
resuming the mundane, shrugging shoulders  
for it was no one we knew.  
The old masters painted scenes of agony  
in the most ordinary places  
as if to prove suffering is an isolated experience.  
Onlookers see and sympathize,  
but they are somehow yet removed,  
not quite totally there with the sufferers.    
Yes, the old masters understood  
the human position of suffering,  
how it is surrounded by innocence and indifference.  
We sigh and lament then continue our daily grind.  
Pedestrian life must run its course  
with those who are martyrs and victims  
while decent men turn a blind eye.  
What can the old masters teach us  
that we should have learned long ago?  
Is it that the poor will always be with us?  
Or, that the dead shall bury the dead?  
Perhaps it is that,  
“Man, who is born of woman,  
Is short of days and full of trouble”  
In life we will all suffer,    
as if it were our white legs    
going into the green sea,  
while somewhere the infamous ploughman  
wearing his billowy red shirt  
may have heard our forsaken cry,  
though for him ours was not an important failure.  
The old masters sought to know,  
can we save the world, can we save even one?  
Sadly, we don’t care if Icarus can swim;  
nor does the untidy dog or the itching horse;  
so, we finish our sandwich as we walk dully along.