The War in the Air

The War in the AirBy Howard Nemerov

For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,

Who rarely bothered coming home to die

But simply stayed away out there

In the clean war, the war in the air.

Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales

Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,

But stayed up there in the relative wind,

Shades fading in the mind,

Who had no graves but only epitaphs

Where never so many spoke for never so few:

Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars,

Per aspera, to the stars.

That was the good war, the war we won

As if there was no death, for goodness's sake.

With the help of the losers we left out there

In the air, in the empty air.

This poem's subject is clearly stated in the title. It is a poem regarding the consequences and loss of the war. Even though the poet stated that the war was won, it didn't feel victorious to them considering so many lives had been lost. The line "Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales", means that there are rarely people who return from the war to share their stories. It also seems that the people who do return from war receive all the praise, forgetting the ones that have died for their country.