The War Works Hard

The speaker opens the poem on an ironic note, sarcastically praising the war for “How eager / and efficient!” it is (Lines 2-3). With these arresting opening lines, the speaker introduces the reader to the poem’s most prominent theme: what an omnipresent and tireless force the war is and how it has managed to reshape every aspect of society in this unnamed country. The speaker describes the war as making its mark at the beginning of every new day, as it “wakes up the sirens / and dispatches ambulances” (Lines 5-6) to scenes of recent bombings and/or shootings to collect the dead and wounded. The speaker then briefly alludes to the human toll of these casualties, describing how the war “summons rain / from the eyes of mothers” (Lines 10-11) who are grieving the deaths of their children.

Due to the relentless destruction the war brings, much of the country is filled with rubble from former buildings. The war “digs into the earth / dislodging many things” (Lines 12-13) from under the wreckage, although it becomes clear in the following lines that these “things” are not mere things at all but human beings who were caught in the crossfire: “some are lifeless and glistening / others are pale and still throbbing” (Lines 15-16). The war is, in other words, tearing down what humans once worked so hard to build: houses, schools, offices, and the individual lives that once thrived within them. Apart from the man-made urban world, the war has also had an effect on the country’s natural landscapes, as it “sows mines in the fields / and reaps punctures and blisters” (Lines 22-23), leaving the natural world scarred by traces of the conflict. As the war “shoot[s] fireworks and missiles / into the sky” day after day (Lines 20-21), no part of the country is left untouched.

The war also reshapes the country in unsettling ways, both socially and politically. Politically, the war is a boost for tyrannical regimes, as it “inspires tyrants / to deliver long speeches” (Lines 30-31) while also applauding the military-industrial complex that cynically benefits from the destruction by “award[ing] medals to generals” (Line 32) for the killings. The toll borne by ordinary citizens is indirectly alluded to in the lines, “it contributes to the industry / of artificial limbs / [and] provides food for flies” (Lines 34-36), with “artificial limbs” referring to the prosthetics needed for amputees, and “food for flies” alluding to the corpses of the dead.

The speaker also identifies a surreal contrast between how the war functions as an overarching narrative and how it features in the lives of ordinary people. On a narrative level, the war becomes the stuff of both media and history. It “adds pages to the history books” (Line 37), becoming a story for the future while also “fill[ing] the newspapers / with articles and pictures” (Lines 42-43) as a story in the here and now. But as a force in the lives of ordinary people, the war is not a mere story but a terrible threat. To this end, the speaker once again emphasizes the inescapable consequences of the war. Children are left without their parents as the war “builds new houses / for the orphans” (Lines 44-45), and the war “invigorates the coffin makers / [and] gives grave diggers / a pat on the back” (Lines 46-48) due to the ever-mounting death toll from the conflict. In the poem’s concluding lines, the speaker returns to the irony with which she opened the poem, noting how in spite of the war’s “unparalleled diligence!” (Line 50), no one wishes to thank the war for its efforts – there is not “a word of praise” (Line 52) to be heard anywhere in the midst of all this suffering.