From next (1988), "sorrow song" Summary

This is another poem of grief and mourning. The central image is of the eyes of children, those who suffered, along with their parents, in episodes of hate, racism, prejudice and torture. This poem is written for the eyes of children who were the last to die, or in the poet's words, the last to melt, to vaporize, possible referring directly to the holocaust. She writes this poem for the children of the holocaust, the children who suffered in the Viet Nam war, the children who suffered with racist killings in South Africa, those who died in the atomic bombing in Japan, those who suffered and died on the slave ships to America, for children of American Indians, for children of starving people in Africa—and then for children everywhere, those in...