Explication of "Naming of Parts" by Henry Reed

The poem “Naming of Parts” by Henry Reed presents an interesting parallel between the parts of a gun and nature. Each paragraph begins with a rather mundane description of some general component of a gun and finishes with a more romantic piece of nature that is cleverly related by multi-dimensional wording. In the second stanza, the concept of a “sling swivel” traverses from a gun component to a sling for a broken arm (9). Just as the safety catch is not to be touched with a finger, blossoms do not allow tactile observing. The word breech in line 20 could denote the gun component, but it could also refer to a breach in enemy lines through which troops attack as indicated by the “early bees” “assaulting.” The poem is incredibly enigmatic, but there seems to be a general drift of the course of a battle throughout the poem. First, there is preparation through training and learning to use the gun in the first three stanzas, then it is “easy” to “[ease] the spring” or let the gun fire, and finally, the last line seems to be a gruesome double denotation between the naming of gun components parallel to earlier and the surveying of the battle field for who died. In the first paragraph, the Japonica in the “neighboring gardens” makes me think of blood still fresh from recent battles because it is a bright red flower. In the fourth stanza, the phrase “easing the spring” can refer to releasing a physical spring and to the beginning of the season of spring. The recurring phrase, “which in our case we have not got” reflects that the soldiers do not have the necessary parts of their guns, but there must be some deeper meaning to that. The third stanza refers to the safety-catch always being released, which suggests that was is not safe. The repeated transition between the mundane and the ethereal pictures of nature suggests that while the gruesome consequences of war are carried out, peaceful enjoyment could be had instead.