Homecoming - Bruce Dawe
All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,
they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,
they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,
they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home
– curly- heads, kinky hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms
– they’re high, now high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein,
their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific
with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,
home, home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures
of earth, the knuckled hill, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness…
in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers
– taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises
surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour)
then fading at length as they move
on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset
raise muzzles in mute salute,
and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs
telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree
and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry
– they’re bring them home, now, too late, too early
they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,
they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,
they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home
– curly- heads, kinky hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms
– they’re high, now high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein,
their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific
with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,
home, home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures
of earth, the knuckled hill, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness…
in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers
– taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises
surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour)
then fading at length as they move
on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset
raise muzzles in mute salute,
and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs
telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree
and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry
– they’re bring them home, now, too late, too early
ANALYSIS
This poem describes the homecoming of dead Aussie soldiers in the Vietnam War. It shows themes of Death, Loneliness, and even the outcomes of war. Dawe uses various poetic devices to bring these themes to life, such as:
ASSONANCE - Dawe uses assonance in lines like; Deep freeze (describing the temperature of the place they keep the bodies before burial), non-coms (meaning war participants that never received war commission for being at war), mute salute (meaning dogs salute the soldiers quietly)
ALLITERATION: Dawe also uses alliteration in lines such as; those they, tarmac at tan (runway in Vietnam), crew cuts, tilt towards, wide web, like leaves, and telegrams tremble.
ONOMATOPOEIA: describes the jets whining like hounds
ASSONANCE - Dawe uses assonance in lines like; Deep freeze (describing the temperature of the place they keep the bodies before burial), non-coms (meaning war participants that never received war commission for being at war), mute salute (meaning dogs salute the soldiers quietly)
ALLITERATION: Dawe also uses alliteration in lines such as; those they, tarmac at tan (runway in Vietnam), crew cuts, tilt towards, wide web, like leaves, and telegrams tremble.
ONOMATOPOEIA: describes the jets whining like hounds