Kinnell doesn't set out to write a politically charged poem, but the connections he makes lead him in that direction, nonetheless. While living in a Vietnamese hamlet, the narrator of the poem Vapor Trail Reflected in the Frog Pond hears "America Singing," a song composed of the crunching of weapons and the buzz of a bomber jet. Thus, it contrasts conflict with tranquility by depicting a bomber against a tranquil background of the loss.
