Hollow Men

The first image that came to mind when we discussed this poem in class was the hollow tree on the cover of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I thought of that story from high school and how hatred and racism make usually decent people into hollow shells of themselves. We recently had a speaker at the school I work for who was a member of the march from Selma to Montgomery which brought voting rights to African Americans. She spoke of the terror of Bloody Sunday which occurred before Dr. King led the march that eventually reached Montgomery. Her words and the pain of her memories reminded me of the film we watched and this poem. "Not that final meeting / In the twilight kingdom" reminded me of the hope that this speaker said sustained her when thrown in jail and beaten by police. Suffering can make humans hollow like the survivors of war, but there are also those who find something to hold onto to make them solid and enduring.