Crossing Berlin on a Sunday Morning
The traffic is light
this Sunday morning
as a shy September sun
dries the Berlin streets.
Streets and buildings
roll by the windows
of the taxi driving me
to the airport.
Along the Frankfurter Allee
the grand architecture
radiates its past, just as
the Volksbühne behind
Alexanderplatz does.
But not even from
the architecture can I see
at what precise moment
I cross that line on which less
than a generation ago
people died trying to cross.
The wall so victoriously
torn down 25 years ago
is almost eradicated
from the cityscape.
An admirable act of boldly
breaking with the past
to make a better future
possible.
I feel privileged to live
in that better future,
but also remember
the victims of brutal pasts,
from which the important
lesson seems too easy
to forget:
never again.
I wrote this poem during a taxi-ride through Berlin. Today, it is 30 years ago that the Berlin wall was demolished. The moment became a symbol for freedom for many people in the former Soviet republics. In the picture a fragment of the Berlin wall on display in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Five years after writing this poem, it seems that the memory and impact of the moment is fading. Lessons are being forgotten. Even more important to think about our freedoms, cherish and stand up for them. Together, and with respect for the other.
