Compared to “They Dropped Like Flakes” where the first three lines are all similes, there is only one simile in Piatt’s poem: “you were as free as the wind is free.” Like Dickinson, Piatt compares the subject to nature. Unlike Dickinson’s similes, the image Piatt uses is more active. Dickinson’s similes describe the moment of death, the soldiers falling dead. I classify this as passive, because the act of falling, in this case, is not an action initiated by the soldiers. It happens to them through some external force. Compared to the simile of the wind, Piatt is describing the dead soldier when they were still alive, and courting the speaker of the poem.
Dickinson also uses wind in her poem, and it, too, takes an active role. She describes the wind “with fingers - goes” moving, and possibly being the force that causes the soldiers to “drop” in the first place. Like the similies, she seems to do this in order to use nature to try to make sense of death. She portrays it as something as natural as dropping “like Flakes” or “Like petals from a Rose.” Dickinson also factors in God here too. To Dickinson, God is a natural being, one who knows all, even the fate of each person who are numerous, like the blades of “seamless Grass” that they lie in.
On the other hand, Piatt seems to use nature to enhance the imagery of the poem. Piatt’s poem is largely centered on a monologue, where nature takes a backseat to the message. There is a real sense of loss in this poem, which Dickinson’s does not have. Piatt starts off each stanza quite casually, some instances are even an example of anaphora. “So” is repeated a few times throughout the beginning of lines, as well as “Or.” These words seem to imply wanting a response but instead, emphasizes that the speaker is in a one-sided conversation with this soldier.
“Giving Back the Flower” is structured more rigidly compared to Dickinson’s. Each stanza is four lines long and with an ABAB rhyme structure. Whereas Dickinson’s stanzas are not constrained to the same length or the same rhyme scheme. She is more loose with the rules but due to the length of the poem, “They Dropped Like Flakes” feels more constrained and planned, like how she tries to portray death. Piatt’s poem is tight with the rules but loose in content, like a ranting stream of consciousness to process the death of a loved one.