When my older brother <br />came back from war <br />he had on his forehead a little silver star <br />and under the star <br />an abyss <br /> <br /> <br />a splinter of shrapnel <br />hit him at Verdun <br />or perhaps at Grünwald <br />(he’d forgotten the details) <br /> <br /> <br />he used to talk much <br />in many languages <br />but he liked most of all <br />the language of history <br /> <br /> <br />until losing breath <br />he commanded his dead pals to run <br />Roland Kowaski Hannibal <br /> <br /> <br />he shouted <br />that this was the last crusade <br />that Carthage soon would fall <br />and then sobbing confessed <br />that Napoleon did not like him <br /> <br /> <br />we looked at him <br />getting paler and paler <br />abandoned by his senses <br />he turned slowly into a monument <br /> <br /> <br />into musical shells of ears <br />entered a stone forest <br />and the skin of his face <br />was secured <br />with the blind dry <br />buttons of eyes <br /> <br /> <br />nothing was left him <br />but touch <br /> <br /> <br />what stories <br />he told with his hands <br />in the right he had romances <br />in the left soldier’s memories <br /> <br /> <br />they took my brother <br />and carried him out of town <br />he returns every fall <br />slim and very quiet <br />he does not want to come in <br />he knocks at the window for me <br /> <br /> <br />we walk together in the streets <br />and he recites to me <br />improbable tales <br />touching my face <br />with blind fingers of rain<br /><br />Zbigniew Herbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rain-108/
