Sad Poets Society № 14

Remembering to be kind with Philip Larkin

Photo by Viktor Smoliak on Unsplash

Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Sad Poets Society. Today, we’ll be discussing “The Mower” by Philip Larkin. Let’s get into it.

The Mower

BY PHILIP LARKIN

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.

It’s so easy to hate or to be indifferent, apathetic. Kindness is much more difficult. Even the people we love sometimes make us want to tear our hair out. We’re kind to them because we love them, though, because we want to let them know they are loved. But strangers are abstract, even when they’re standing right in front of us. And then there are our enemies and the people we see as lesser than ourselves. Being kind to them is the most difficult thing of all.