Vincent Di Stefano's "In Memoriam" opens with a question about war. The speaker imagines nights lit up across great distances and lives cut short, then asks whether "broken gods of war" will once more reduce humanity's long work to cinder. The tone is dark and uneasy, and the phrase "broken gods" suggests powers that are damaged yet still dangerous.
The middle of the poem turns weary and flat. The two short lines about trouble ("Trouble enough there has been. / Trouble further we have seen.") sound like someone who has run out of fresh words for suffering. "At the end of days" and "the edge of ruin" push the sense of dread to its peak.
Then the ending shifts. The speaker quotes a father's reminder that the universe is "vast beyond imagining." It could be comfort, a sign that our disasters are small, or it could be a quiet, ambiguous shrug. Either way, the poem closes on a hushed, uncertain calm rather than despair, and the mood stays with you.