With the poem's setting in Birmingham, Alabama, around the time of the bombing of a church in 1963, readers can tell that the tone of the poem will be extremely heartbreaking and depressing. The poem initially begins with a little girl asking her mother to go downtown where a march is taking place instead of going out to play. The second verse is the child's mother telling her no because the atmosphere is not good for a small child. The fourth verse is the mother telling her son that he could go to church instead of "singing in the children's choir." (Line 16) As the little girls prepare to go to church, “The mother smiled as she recognized her little girl” showing the love she had for her little girl. “But that smile was the last smile to appear on his face.” In the seventh verse chaos begins with the sound of explosions. The mother runs through the streets of Birmingham looking for her lost son. Here we see the final stanza radiate with death. The child's mother cannot therefore be found; we must come to the conclusion that the child is no longer with the