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By Zbigniew Herbert

A home above the year's seasons

home of children animals and apples

a square of empty space

under an absent star

home was the telescope of childhood

the skin of emotion

a sister's cheek

branch of a tree

the cheek was extinguished by flame

the branch crossed out by a shell

over the powdery ash of the nest

a song of homeless infantry

home is the die of emotion

home is the cube of childhood

the wing of a burned sister

leaf of a dead tree