Facing it

Facing It

Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,   

hiding inside the black granite.   

I said I wouldn't  

dammit: No tears.   

I'm stone. I'm flesh.   

My clouded reflection eyes me   

like a bird of prey, the profile of night   

slanted against morning. I turn   

this way—the stone lets me go.   

I turn that way—I'm inside   

the Vietnam Veterans Memorialhalf-expecting to find   

my own in letters like smoke.   

I touch the name Andrew Johnson

I see the booby trap's white flash.   

Names shimmer on a woman's blouse   

but when she walks away   

the names stay on the wall.   

Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's   

wings cutting across my stare.   

The sky. A plane in the sky.   

A white vet's image floats   

closer to me, then his pale eyes   

look through mine. I'm a window.   

He's lost his right arm   

inside the stone. In the black mirror   

a woman’s trying to erase names:   

No, she's brushing a boy's hair.


This by far has got to be one of my most favorite poems yet. The author uses a ton of images that really makes it seem like I was in the Vietnam war. However, this is not the only thing great about the poem I like the main message to show how the only thing that these men who fought hard is get a stone with a name on it. I think personally that this is not right but, that is the way the government works, if you fight and die you are just remembered by a name and then replaced with another fool. In conclusion, the poem to me is power full because its a man speaking out to tell the truth and explain in detail what military life is truly like.