As the poem is set in Birmingham, Alabama around the time of the 1963 church bombing, readers can tell that the tone of the poem is going to be extremely heartbreaking. and depressing. The poem begins with a child asking his mother to go downtown where a march is taking place instead of going outside to play. The second stanza is the child's mother telling him no because the atmosphere is not right for a small child. The fourth stanza is the mother telling her child that she can go to church to “sing in the children’s choir” instead. (Line 16) As the little girl prepares to go to church, “The mother smiled to know her child” showing the love she had for her little girl. “But that smile was the last smile to appear on his face.” It is in the seventh stanza that the chaos begins with the sound of explosions. The mother runs through the streets of Birmingham looking for her lost child. Here we see the final stanza radiating death. The mother of the little child is therefore nowhere to be found; we must conclude that the child is no longer with the