What stuff makes up this little hill
that lets me swoop to the top
where I see the world, my world,
waiting down below?
What makes me run so fast
up and down and up,
from bottom to side to top
and down again?
What is this nice green grass
the mower keeps so neat
so I can run
and not stumble?
And what is this hardness
below the mowed softness
that makes me see walls
and city streets?
Is it the city, my rubbled city?
The pushed and shoved bones
of buildings blown to bits
during the war.
A city rubbished to an ugly death
is mossed over by green, grown seeds
and it is time, time, time
that now rests below our feet.
I visited this park in Munich as a college student. It was made of the wreckage of the city after WWII. All I saw that day were parents and their children picnicing, playing on the lawns, running up and down the hills.
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