Thoughts of Hanoi….

This poem talks about the happiness as a kid and the fear of the future when a country is “sliced by hatred”. Civil War put’s brother against brother, somebody who you shared lots of good times with, is now your enemy.

Civil War can be like our past and future, it can be sliced apart by hatred. We want our future to be a like our past, but when hatred rips our lives apart, we have no choice. Sometime it’s too hard to think of how happy you were when you’re a kid, when your future may get so mess up, so we want to bury it so we don’t have to think about what we can’t have any more.

Reading the poem we get a picture of the life the speaker had when he was a kid, the way he described the other kids in his past. The lines are indented to make us take the steps to get a picture in our mind so we can see what he see’s. He makes us feel his thoughts about where he grew up, is it the same as his memories or has it all changed? Will the hatred destroy his future, and the actual place he where he grew up?

The speaker pulls us back to the present, with his thoughts of the future. Will the brothers meet up on the battle field, will they be forced to try and kill each other. Where will the hatred take them in the future? If they do meet on the battle field what will they do?