I walked past the bench today on the old pathway
a place we’d sit surrounded by woodland stretches
where I’d listened to you talk of Poland before the war
Of the Germans, Auschwitz and you as a teenage boy
delivering bread from your father’s bakery
to the Waffen SS barracks I remembered in sepia tones
Photographs only. And you’d lose some loaves behind
the wire fences — no more words, no more details,
you did what was needed to be done. No questions.
What else could you do. Nothing more to say
The old bench is falling away now, the pathway a mire,|
boot marks washed in black mud by the rains
constant falling. And your days my dear Stanislaus
are getting forgotten too. Are you listening to the way the rain
is falling again today. And so with thoughts of you I walk through
the heavy leafed trees weighed by the gathering rain.
