The poem
Over the local stations, one by one, Announcers list disasters like dark poems That always happen in the skull of winter. But once again the storm has passed us by: Lovely and moderate, the snow lies down While shouting children hurry back to play, And scarved and smiling citizens once more Sweep down their easy paths of pride and welcome.
And what else might we do? Les us be truthful. Two counties north the storm has taken lives. Two counties north, to us, is far away, - A land of trees, a wing upon a map, A wild place never visited, - so we Forget with ease each far mortality.
Peacefully from our frozen yards we watch Our children running on the mild white hills. This is the landscape that we understand, - And till the principle of things takes root, How shall examples move us from our calm? I do not say that is not a fault. I only say, except as we have loved, All news arrives as from a distant land.
i'd like to know what the theme is about this poem.
The poem compares life and death, the preciousness of birth (scarved children) and the fragility of life. Also our denial of mortality (the disasters are in a northern and distant place) and how easy it is to forget that other peoples' experience is also, inevitably, our own.