Several years following the Vietnam War, Yusef Komunyakaa being a Vietnam survivor himself, details in his poem "Facing It", his emotions while at the Vietnam Memorial. Yusef allows the reader to experience the conflicts of his feelings, in the perfect example of man versus himself. Komunyakaa's poem incorporates two contrasts, light and dark and the present-day reality and its distant past.

Of the contrasts, the comparison between light and dark commences the poem. This contrast is in turn composed of race and Yusef's environment. His references to skin color leave the reader questioning whether the memories of the war, also stirred reminders of how Yusef's "black face" could have played a role in the way he was treated during his war effort. The speaker alludes to his own reflection in the black granite as "the profile of night slanted against morning"; this juxtaposed metaphor of night and day...