My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning.
The simile “like a bird of prey,” conveys the patriotic image of the bald eagle—an American symbol of freedom and national strength. Here however, it is a hunter with a keen eye. That his own reflection “eyes [him] like a bird of prey” conveys a twofold meaning. The first is that very image of America as a hunter, as it might have been portrayed during the Vietnam War; the second, perhaps more intimate expression, is that of the narrator searching, hunting for himself in the reflective image.
According to Lacanian psychoanalysis, the “mirror stage” in the life of a child is that time in which he sees himself in a mirror for the first time, and thinks that his reflection is more perfect than the child himself, and thus feels lack for his shortcomings. This certainly applies here, as the narrator sees his own reflection in the stone. Perhaps he feels lack for not having suffered the same fate of his comrades.
He also expects to find his own name on the wall, “in letters like smoke.” Literally, the letters are a white-gray, like the color of smoke, etched into the black granite. Alternatively, however, “letters like smoke” is a symbolic image, referencing not only the smoke from a gun that has just been used in the heat of battle, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the smoke is all that is left after a fire has been extinguished. As lives are often referred to as “flames,” the audience can understand the origin of this image. The 58,022 names on the wall are essentially all that remains of the extinguished flames—memories in “letters like smoke. That Komunyakaa is able to convey all of this emotion in three words is certainly a testanment to the brevity and beauty of his poetry.
Komunyakaa’s poem is able to draw upon the allusions of the Vietnam War, and the Veteran’s Memorial, because the author knows that his audience will filly understand the references that he alludes to; though we may not be veterans ourselves, many either know someone who is a veteran, or they have learned of the horrors of the war in the vast array of literature and other media on the topic. In depending upon the information that the audience already possesses, he is able to refer to the image as though his audience is standing at the wall looking at it with him. We see our own reflection in the stone. We see the 58,022 names ourselves. Komunyakaa uses this allusory literary device to draw his audience even closer to the narrative of the poem, and succeeds in doing so. The audience understands what he means in the lines:
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.
The “white vet” is not a deliberate reference to a soldier’s race, though it can be construed as one. Rather, the audience assumes that his audience is familiar with the memorial itself, and as such, is familiar with the white etchings of soldiers into the black stone. The images are ghostly and serve as a haunting backdrop to the thousands of names. Here, a soldier’s eyes “look through” the narrators own. The narrator becomes “a window” to the rest of the world, or perhaps the fallen soldier can see through him, and understand the emotions that are extant in his heart.
Furthermore, the author personifies inanimate objects in order to give them an element of humanity, and not allow his audience to forget that the names do belong to the thousands of young men who gave their lives for their country for no reason other than that they were asked to do so. The line “My clouded reflection eyes me,” places humanity into the rock, which proves to be interesting, because just two lines earlier, the narrator has said “I’m stone,” attributing the qualities of stone—rigidity, coldness, and flatness—to himself, and the qualities he possesses—those of humanity, and life—to the stone. It is apparent that he knows that his name could just as easily be on the list of fallen men, and perhaps that he wishes it were. He finds the name of what we must assume was a friend during the war:
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
It seems that he must have actually seen his friend killed in the spoils of war; perhaps he wishes that their places were reversed, as it is difficult to lose friends under any condition, but especially in such a gruesome and meaningless fashion. He sees the “booby trap’s white flash,” which the audience must assume is a reference to the landmines that were so prevalent during the Vietnam war. This element of personification pervades the poem, pulling in elements of humanity throughout. As the narrator expresses, “the stone lets me go,” the audience is left wondering how a stone can hold on or let go of anything; this seems to be a strictly human attribute. Immediately, however, we understand: It traps the Vietnam Veteran in his own memories of war, and refuses to let him go, until he looks away. At once, the narrator, the author, and the audience, are not only witness to the war, but we are in it. Then, the stone lets us go. Here, by attributing the element of humanity to the stone, Komunyakaa is able to express to the audience how trapped he feels inside his own mind: his own memories.
The most beautiful and poignant of the author’s use of personification, however, appears in the last lines of the poem:
...In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
On the literal level, we see the image of a woman grazing her hand over the name of her late son. Komunyakaa wants us to feel so much more here, however. In these few lines, he is able to convey not only his own emotion, but those of a complete stranger whom he has never met. She is simply another visitor at the memorial, who has come to see the name of her fallen son inscribed in the wall. Komunyakaa, however, gives life to that image, and suddenly the name of her son is no longer just a name; it becomes the figure of her son as a child. He is getting ready for school perhaps, and she brushes his hair to send him on his way. At once the audience empathizes with her, understanding how she must have felt at the loss of her son, but also with the narrator, who seems to be detached from the image. By infusing this woman’s story with his own, Komunyakaa not only ends the poem with a poignant image, but in the microcosm of the poem, is able to express the diversity of individuals who visit the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC. It is certainly not only Vietnam Veterans like Komunyakaa himself who visit the memorial, but there is a greater mélange of personalities, each with their own reasons for visiting the memorial. There are parents, like the woman in the poem; there are children, grandchildren, and friends of the fallen; there are tourists, and those who go simply to learn more about their country’s history. Whatever their reason, there are thousands upon thousands of individuals who make that pilgrimage to the Vietnam Wall every year. For this generation of Americans it has become a Mecca, or a Canterbury, and visiting the wall has become a sort of rite of passage, and certainly a life-changing experience. In proffering the stories of two such visitors to the memorial, Komunyakaa has, in effect, reminded his audience of the importance of it.
Images of light and darkness cannot be separated from our reading of the poem, as they are employed throughout. Starting at the beginning of the poem:
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
Beginning the poem with two images of darkness—that is, the “black face,” and “black granite,” immediately sets the rest of the narrative in a melancholic tone, due to the negative connotation attached to images of darkness. This is followed by the image of a “clouded reflection,” another image of darkness,
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning.
But then, we have the image of night, “slanted against morning.” This is the first image of light that appears in the poem, and offers a slight ray of hope. The emotions in this poem are certainly complex, as we see here. There are fond memories of the past mixed with horrific ones. There is the gratitude for his own life, mixed with the regret at losing his comrades, and his own wish that he were in their place. We understand that he is “depending on the light to make a difference.” That is, that he depends on the light to distinguish the good memories from the bad. For several lines, the poem is inundated with images of light, whether or not they derive a positive connotation. The “booby trap’s white flash,” the “brushstrokes flash,” the “names shimmer on a woman’s blouse,” the “white vet’s image,” with “pale eyes” are all images of light which the author uses in order to contrast with the black granite—that is, the cold, unfeeling stone.
The poem reverts back to the images of darkness for the end.
In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
And ends the poem with the same melancholic feeling with which it began. He also reverts back to the mirroring image that he used in the beginning, to reiterate his own feeling of lack for the audience at the end of the poem.
“Facing It,” by Yusef Komunyakaa proves to be a touching expression of one Vietnam Veteran’s experience and emotion as he visits the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. However, on a larger scale, it also proves to be a more general expression of the importance of the monument to American citizens who make their own pilgrimage to it. The author achieves this dual triumph through his use of literary and poetic devices as they are presented in the poem.
Works Cited
Komunyakaa, Yusef. “Facing It.” Dien Cai Dau. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1988.
Lacan, Jacques. “Mirror Stage.” Ecrits: A Selection. Trans, Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1977.
Facing It
By 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 Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-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.
