Grief

One of the main themes of Hirsch's poem is the grief the speaker feels in anticipation of his friend's death. "Omen" is unique in that it describes this grief at a point before the friend has actually died, but it deals with the typical themes of a traditional elegiac poem that remembers a person after his/her death. In an expression of sorrow and resignation, Hirsch explores the ways in which people deal with death and experience loss.

Vital to Hirsch's commentary on grief is the fact that his speaker deals with his friend's illness by feeling and remembering his friend's pains and fears. Because the friend feels repeated, agonizing pain, the speaker remembers the rain banging against his own head, and because the friend is confined to an "airless" hospital ward, the speaker remembers when he himself was "unable to breathe" during his sleep. This appears to...