stanza 2

• • "beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat."
  • By talking about innocent children running he reinforces the horror of the situation. It is not just soldiers involved.
• • "Home again to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel, to fields which don't explode"
  • People in Britain often have simple problems and can be cheered up by a sunny day.
  • Fields of rural England are full of crops or animals grazing. Fields in battle zones are full of mines or napalm bombs are dropped over them.
• • "Solutions slop in trays"
  • Sibilance/ onomatopeia
  • The word ‘solutions’ is literal – the fluid used to develop the photographs, but is also metaphorical: his hope that in some way these images will help to solve the violence he has photographed; be a part of the solution to worldwide conflict.
• • "beneath his hands which did not tremble then though seem to now."
  • He couldn’t allow himself to feel any emotion at the time but feels it now. The irony is that he is trembling now in the safety of his darkroom, but he remained steady and professional at the actual scene of violence.
  • This implies he has to distance himself from human emotions while he is in the war zone, but it has an effect on him after the trauma.
• • "Rural England."
  • He thinks about the peaceful, idyllic countryside in which he lives. The horrors of war seem less real in ‘Rural England’, but the photographer’s job is to keep these awful events vivid and alive.