If I watch a star
\ndoes it not mean
\nthe past is before me?
\nMy hands can not touch it,
\nbut my eyes can see it.
\nBe a witness.
\nMark where a world ended,
\na crime committed.
\nWhere death followed life,
\nand one can see
\nsoundless cries and prayers.<\/p>\n
For years I have written poems
\nabout my brother.
\nHow he looked on the day
\nhe was murdered in a war.
\nHow his eyes could never see
\nhimself dying.
\nThat he would close them,
\nand the snow would cover
\nhis quiet body
\nuntil it was scooped away,
\nthrown into a truck,
\nwith others like himself.
\nHe would not bleed.
\nIn the frozen whiteness
\nonly one place would be
\nmarked by blood.
\nAnd only somewhere in time
\nwould the physics of light and space
\nlet me imagine where he was,
\nand how his life ended.<\/p>\n
It is gray outside this Ash Wednesday.
\nAs it always is,
\nweeks following the anniversary
\nof the killing.
\nA whole company of men,
\n300 destroyed by the belching
\npipe of the cannon.
\nThe men inside the machine,
\nthrowing shells into the breech
\nuntil there was nothing left.
\nHow they died can be imagined.
\nIt would not be punishment,
\nspilling their German blood,
\na few more murders
\nand some catastrophes announced
\nto their German families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n