How does Gillian Clake make the reader sympathise with the suffering in "Lament"?

Clearly the major wa in which this occurs is through the
painting of very strong and stark visual images that help to convey the suffering that
has been created thanks to the war. Let us remember that this poem is written about the
Gulf War of 1991 and the subsequent damage caused to all aspects of life. One of the
things that Clarke is trying to stress and show is that war affects the environment just
as much as it does people, and each stanza serves to powerfully reinforce this by
creating unforgettable images of nature suffering thanks to the chaos of war waged by
man. Let us examine the following example:

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For the cormorant in his funeral
silk,

the veil of iridescence on the
sand,

the shadow on the
sea.

Note how reference is
made to the pollution of oil in the ocean, and how it forms a "veil of iridescence" on
the sand, capturing the beauty of oil and the many colours it produces, yet combining it
with the "veil" of death it has created for the cormorant and so many other examples of
nature. The poem refers to several other casualties of nature thanks to the war, and
also human casualties as well, but perhaps it is the final stanza that presents the
starkest image of what is really being lost:

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For the burnt earth and the sun put
out,

the scalded ocean and the blazing
well.

For vengeance, and the ashes of
language.

The strong images
of how the earth itself is "burnt" by the momentous and tragic events of war and the
ocean is "scalded" draw our attention to the wider cost of the conflict. The terrific
final line itself represents a lament of how war and the way that truth is sacrificed to
justify it results in a situation where "language" itself is burnt, leaving nothing but
"ashes" that are used to form half-truths to justify such
desolation.