Flying the flag in Bosnia

1)The tone of this poem is sad and grieves. The poet uses phrases such as “Her face is hidden by her hands, but her hands are enough” This showed that the women is really sad that her son had left her, but to see the sadness of the women, one need not see her face, even the hands were enough to show her greive. After seeing her pitiful state, even the grave digger felt sorry for the women. This can be shown from “ A full cup of coffee, Left by the grave digger”, which shows the woman’s helplessness and how pitiful she is. The old woman is also ravaged by the fact that her son died. The poet describes her as “an old woman, whose hair is parted, straight down the middle”. This showed that the woman is so affected and sad from the incident that she even lost her original look.

2) The poet uses the shirt from the woman’s dead son to signify as a flag. The writer then go on to say that “ In a country that already has too many” this showed that many people in the country had already died due to the war that was going on at the point of time. The purpose of the poet is to show that many innocent lifes were taken as this caused great sadness among the family members. This explained why war should be avoided as it would do both countries no good.