Response to "Woman At The Wall"

I recently read the poem, "Woman At The Wall". At first i thought that the poem was simply about a mother was kissing her children before they go to bed, and praying that they are safe when they awake in the morning.

After reading the poem for the first time, i took the title into consideration. The only reason for the title of the poem that i could think of was a woman being at the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC. I have always seen video clips of people kissing the names of relatives or friends who died for their country in the Vietnam conflict. Most of those images included people on ther knees in tears, thinking of their loved ones who lost their lives.

I then began to put all of the pieces of the poem together, within the aspect of the Vietnam wall theory. I can imagine a mother kneeling at the wall, remembering their child. They remember them so well that they can feel them kneeling next to them.

That person that they loved so dearly, has now been demoted to a simple name on a stone wall, but to that mother, the name is more then just a simple engraving. That name symbolizes the person that had such a huge impact on their life, and still does to this day.

My favorite lines from the poem is, "she will find the name, sleeping again in its bed". This line symbolizes her prayers and hopes that some day god will bring that person back into their life, as if nothing bad ever happened ot them.