Memories

This shop, the church, the general layout of the village, the ground plan of the cemetery and the local inflection and pronunciation of German is about all that is left in the material world of my mother's youth. Of course the new village will never replace the memories of a happy childhood during years of holidays spend here. That place will magically always exist, maybe just as a myth. So I felt lost and forlorn. The ravages of WW II are still visible, legible in these German towns. Their hearts have been ripped out by allied bombs and the cheap modernity that came instead is sad testimony to it all. In most cities it was a chance lost, in Duisburg the fountains and the water in the city and the walk made it all alright. Just as did a meeting with a poet and a pick nick in the park. Thus new memories are made.