To what does the pronoun “it” refer in lines 5-6 in poem “the last word”
poem
when i saw your head bow, i knew i had beaten you.
you shed no tear not tear me it held your neck
bare for the blow i had been too frightened
ever to deliver, even in words. and now
in spite of me, plummeting it came.
frozen we both waited for its fall.
most of what you gave me i have forgotten
with my mind but taken into my body,
but this i remember well; the bones of your neck
and the strain in my shoulders as i heaved you that huge
double blade and snapped my wrists to swing
the handle down and hear the axe’s edge
nick through your flesh and creak into the block.

Read the excerpt from elie wiesel’s all rivers run to the sea. why were those trains allowed to roll unhindered into poland? why were the tracks leading to birkenau never bombed? i have put these questions to american presidents and generals and to high-ranking soviet officers. since moscow and washington knew what the killers were doing in the death camps, why was nothing done at least to slow down their “production”? that not a single allied military aircraft ever tried to destroy the rail lines converging on auschwitz remains an outrageous enigma to me. birkenau was “processing” ten thousand jews a day. stopping a single convoy for a single night—or even for just a few hours—would have prolonged so many lives. based on the paragraph, the author would most likely agree that it is best to avoid confrontation at all costs. people need to be proactive when they witness an injustice. countries should remain neutral to keep alliances strong. moscow and washington are to be blamed for the holocaust.