"Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.’’
The poem presents a conversation between two men, a conversation during which one of the men asked the other person how the people from Vietnam used to be like. The second speaker claims the people changed when their children were killed. After that, the people in the country changed radically and they no longer were the "light hearted’’ people they once were. Instead, they turned to stone and gave up the things that once brought them joy. Thus, the driving force that changed their behavior was not their own badness but rather the way they were treated by the other nations.
"(…) Are we
what we think we are or are we
what befalls us?’’
In the poem mentioned above, the narrator records the words uttered by a group of people watching from the window a procession. They ask the narrator if she knows who they really are, if they are who they wanted to become or if they became something society wanted them to be. The question remains unanswered and it is important for the modern reader as well. Through this question, the narrator wants everyone to think about what they want from life and weather they are what they wanted to become or if they became something society wanted them to be.
"If we’re here let’s be here now’’.
In the poem mentioned above, the narrator transmits a powerful message, namely how a person needs to focus on the present, not on the past. The narrator mentions this as a way of answering to those who question whether they are who they want to be or if they became a person society wanted them to become. The narrator refuses to dwell on questions regarding the meaning of life or the possibility of being influenced by society. While this strategy may appear dangerous it is the only way a person can be happy.
