Early Morning At The Berlin Wall

I am tired from driving all night
in a peculiar southern man’s fog
that only snow, autobahn, and Garrison Keillor
can combine to make.

We are hours later than we should be,
time lost at an East German checkpoint
because I had the audacious ignorance to smile at a guard,
my small town genes not yet jaded
into no eye contact and that worldly not giving a shit
that eventually ties us all together.

It is 5 AM in Berlin and there is nowhere to park.

We squeeze our red AVIS COURTESY VAN,
so labeled in convenient English
and the scourge of East German border guards,
into an impossible spot
grab a woefully inadequate tire tool
and set out for the wall.

The air is still and stuffed with snow.
To us it carries the slow and steady

TINK

tink

TINK

of like minded men with inadequate tools
who hurl themselves at walls
with the best of intentions.

I found myself a hole as big as my head
and peered past the rusty rebar,
only to find there was nothing on the other side,
only a muddy field
while in the air was the sound of knights
tilting at the lists for reasons each his own
and just as forgotten now as that field of mud
beyond the wall.