Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa - Essay Example

Thousands of people are dead and there is nothing to do but to face the names of the heroes at the Memorial Wall. The author reflects his challenging feelings about war, because he is a veteran of that dreadful war and as well, he reflects his feelings about present. The modern world cannot erase the reminiscences about the darkest past of War. Those, who are looking at the Memorial, are hiding their faces behind the granite. A black of the author also fades and he says that he cannot allow him any tears.

He feels anxious about the situation. He sees not only the letters of the names of those, who dead, but he also experiences a spirit of those names. The line "I'm stone. I'm flesh" can be described either in a metaphorical manner or as a direct gradual vision of the author about himself. He sees his reflection on the stone and realizes that he is only a flesh. His thoughts and feelings are far beyond the Memorial. It looks like the author wants to look beyond two realities: a reality of war and a reality of present times.

When he has a hope to look for his own name in the list of the “58,022 names”, he confesses that he knows only one name of a soldier, who was killed by the booby trap, Andrew Johnson. In such a way he shows that war can devastate a life of any friend or relative or any man in the crowd. When the author unexpectedly introduces an image of a woman, who is looking through the names on the wall, he underlines a usual flow of life. The contemporaries are passing by the Memorial. Unfortunately, it is a usual situation.

People are concerned about wars or disasters, only when they concern them directly. In other case they are not interested in those images or names on the wall. The scar of war cannot be removed from a historical background of the country, but very often it is easier for those, who do not have this scar in their hearts to pass by or to use a Memorial as a kind of a mirror! Very unusual approach and a serious difference between the veterans and a selfish nature of the modern individuals can be found in the dreadful periods of history, when there was a need to fight for one’s life.

It was impossible to save one’s life without having selfish principles. The same principles are reflected in the modern times, when the modern individuals are only passing by the historic monuments and they do not have such deep and devoted feelings as those, who participated in the war. The author of the poem perfectly reflects overlapping of present and past times. There are different materialistic reflections of a poet throughout the poem. He plays different roles: a stone, a flesh, a window.

The presence of another veteran reflects a presence of something beyond the community of feelings and emotions of vets. The haunting images of the war prevent the author from a realistic understanding of what is going on. When he sees an image of a woman, who erases names of the vets, he sees that she is brushing hair of a boy. Therefore, he realizes that it is very important to remain a realist and there is no need for a life-long fight about the haunting images of war. The war in Vietnam is a controversial period in the history of the United States.

Of course, the society had different feelings and attitudes to this drastic phenomenon in previous times and nowadays. There is a split of two realities: veterans are gradually merging in the