There is no innocence in this city.
No tree, or flower, nor even a blade of grass grows
But on the soil soaked with the blood of a people.
The vast centre of this metropolis, once so bright and busy and mighty,
Is a wasteland, yet, that stretches
Like a gaping wound
At the heart of a divided body.

No smile breaks the set intensity of morning faces,
Piling into subway trains that scream under the city,
That hurtle back and forth, expressionless,
Electric and metal metaphors for the streams of passengers they carry.

There is no way to move in the other direction.

No one has time to stand aside.

The platform attendant calls a warning in tones
That recall the commands, the boots and dogs
That loaded trains half a century ago.

There is no inncoence in this city,
For Germans who stood and watched or supervised those movements
Of a race who disappeared, into smoke.
They are old, or dead now, those Germans, we are told,
As if age, or death, is some kind of absolution
For those enforced journeys, for what was done.

For some deeds there is no expiation. Only retribution.
We are not plants that grow heedless of human action.
We need to look where we come from and where we are going.
Look again at this wounded city (self-inflicted injuries),
Symbol of the desecrated soul of a nation,
Stirring again in the dark.

The songwriters, the artists, the writers, the choreographers, take up
the cross
To expiate, to understand, to absolve, to pay
Through their struggle, for what happened
So that once more in this city
Trees and grass can be blameless
And children be born innocent.

But this cross is not being taken up
By the man or woman or child in the U-Bahn. Nor by the supermarket
shopper or cashier.
They are not to blame, their faces say,
And they are in a hurry and cannot,
Or will not, look back or forward.

Berlin dweller, believe me,
There is time to smile.
There is time to stand aside.
There is time to let another go first.
Death awaits us all, whether we go by way of Wittenberg Platz and a
shouting official,
Or whether we take our time.
It matters to know when and why we are going
It matters to help another on the way.
Thus can the healing begin.
Through such small thrusts
Can innocent grass break through the crumbling concrete of this
devastated metropolis
And new growth bless Berlin.