Yehuda Amichai, "Sonnet"

My father fought their war four years or so,
And did not hate or love his enemies,
Already he was forming me, I know,
Daily, out of his tranquilities;

Tranquilities, so few, which he had gleaned
Between the bombs and smoke, for his son's sake,
And put into his ragged knapsack with
The leftovers of my mother's hardening cake.

He gathered with his eyes the nameless dream,
The many dead for my sake unforsaken,
So that I should not die like them in dread,
But love them, seeing them as once he saw.
He filled his eyes with them; he was mistaken.
Like them, I must go out to meet my war.

1958