If I watch a star
does it not mean
the past is before me?
My hands can not touch it,
but my eyes can see it.
Be a witness.
Mark where a world ended,
a crime committed.
Where death followed life,
and one can see
soundless cries and prayers.
For years I have written poems
about my brother.
How he looked on the day
he was murdered in a war.
How his eyes could never see
himself dying.
That he would close them,
and the snow would cover
his quiet body
until it was scooped away,
thrown into a truck,
with others like himself.
He would not bleed.
In the frozen whiteness
only one place would be
marked by blood.
And only somewhere in time
would the physics of light and space
let me imagine where he was,
and how his life ended.
It is gray outside this Ash Wednesday.
As it always is,
weeks following the anniversary
of the killing.
A whole company of men,
300 destroyed by the belching
pipe of the cannon.
The men inside the machine,
throwing shells into the breech
until there was nothing left.
How they died can be imagined.
It would not be punishment,
spilling their German blood,
a few more murders
and some catastrophes announced
to their German families.