Hymn to Physical Pain: Rudyard Kipling, 1932

Greetings to all my internet friends and neighbors,  and welcome to my attempt to get SOMETHING, ANYTHING, in print.  And for any of my family checking in, this is a story you have not heard, although the subject will be familiar to you.

I've just finished Laura Montgomery's excellent book "Simple Service: Martha's Sons, Book One." I'd like to review it for you, but alas, I have found that attempting to review ANY of the several books I've read immediately results in a bad outcome for me. It seems that an even greater burden comes upon me at the moment I open the word processor, trivializing the writing of reviews, and I can't proceed. It's just writer's block, I know, and it will pass. It has always done so in the past.

But: here's the progression I followed: the series Montgomery has started is called "Martha's Sons." This Martha is a person of literature, living on a planet that was not what they were looking for, and thus designated as NWWWLF. She has multiple sons and daughters, and two of them in particular are the main characters of this compelling book, addressing themes of family loyalty and conflict, the difficulty of living on a planet which requires extensive terraforming, the tendency of oligarchies to resort to ever-more repressive measures to keep in power, all giving us a lovely, lovely back-story to her "Waking Late" series.

The story is quite engaging, but it was the sub-title that kept center-stage in my mind as I finished the read this morning. In fact, I had quite convinced myself that the name of the book was "The Sons of Martha," enough so that I had a moment of difficulty locating the right file to open, as I shifted from one Kindle platform to another. And that lead me to Kipling.

Not that Montgomery references Kipling in the book; the only identifiable reference is to one James Shirley, who wrote "Death the Leveller," presumably some time before his own death in 1666; I feel certain that a post-mortem poet would find it difficult to get published at that time, leveled or not.

I had actually conflated two of Kipling's poems in my memory. For some reason, I had remembered the SUBJECT of "The Sons of Martha," but had assigned to it the title "The Hymn of Breaking Strain." So, it was to that second poem I went first, quickly to disabuse myself of the mis-attribution. However, once there, I discovered the poem which constitutes the title of this blog post, "Hymn to Physical Pain."

I was interested. I am familiar intimately with physical pain, and slightly knowledgeable about the sad fact that Kipling suffered terribly from abdominal pain for the last 20 years of his life. In fact, four years after this poem was published, Kipling died after surgery to repair an intestinal hemorrhage. So, why does he write a hymn to it?

My first, quick reading lead me astray. I thought he was praising the remission of physical pain, which I can absolutely understand.

Subsequent, more careful review set me straight. Here's what Kipling is saying:
Physical pain is good, because it takes our mind off mental/emotional pain, which is far worse.

Hmmmm. I'm going to have to think about that one. As it happens, my current age matches that of Kipling when he wrote this poem; he was only 70 when he died. (ONLY 70? When did 70 become too young to die in my mind?)

My last bout with the intense, captivating pain that is referenced here was a few months ago, and I can absolutely testify to the fact that it drives every other thought from your mind. Surgery brought an end to my pain (want to see a picture of the incision?) but that wasn't available for Kipling. Frankly, I can't imagine enduring the intense degree of torment he must have felt for any length of time; I was only hospitalized for a week or so before they finally opened my belly, and until then I was watching the clock like a monomaniac, and ringing the bell for the nurse to come put the stuff in my IV IMMEDIATELY.

But Kipling says the other pain, that of his soul, was worse. I know he lost a daughter to pneumonia in 1899, and his son was killed in 1915 in WWI, after Kipling had used his influence to get him a commission in the Irish Guards. For the rest, I can recommend to you The History Guy's YouTube presentation.

I guess this will, ultimately, be my takeaway: I am EVER so glad that all I have is physical pain. I'm not denying or trying to minimize it; people who are close to me can verify that there are times when it is all I can do to drag myself out of bed. (Fortunately, those times are rare!) But, it IS just pain, after all. It's not suffering, it's not misery. Those are additives, which I can choose or not.

And today, I choose not.

Peace be on your household.