Under den Linden

Unter den Linden


I have a soft spot for the German language
 when a toddler, I had free access to a military camp where they had enormous horses and let me sit on top of one of them (looking up horses,
I think they were Belgian draft horses)
Since I was 5 years old at the time, I reserve the right to be wrong
My mother said I could speak a little German
I don't think so, but when the Brits and the Americans came, my few words of German were too soon forgotten.
In the late fifties, I was onboard an old ship that
had survived the war but needed its motor seen to in Bremerhaven
the town bore scars of the devastating war
but there was full employment, and everyone was doing something worthwhile, like the farmer who took
took food scraps from ships and fed them to his pigs later, sold for slaughter through ship-chandelier to the merchant ship.
No, Bremenhaven was not Unter den Linden
Not a tree left, cold had the aftermath been
It was spring walking along streets where people sat out telling stories and laughing.
 There was a sense of comradeship that made me feel the trauma they had gone through.
At that time, there were no beggars, and no one was following me around in the hope of getting some coins, which was annoying in places like Kingston in Jamaica and other places
Germany has not hitherto played the leading role
a great nation in Europe, this is because the burden
of the Holocaust, a burden unfairly put on the Germans alone to bear, is coming to an end,
also, I think so is the headless policy of not being critical of Israel's policies, which makes many countries
guilty of aiding and abetting the genocide of
of the Palestinian people