Reni (1949 - 1997) 1.  Prelude 2.  Infantia 3.  German Summer 4.  Berlin-Schönefeld 5.  Warnemünde 6.  Nienhagen 7.  Straußberg 8.  Berlin-Karolinenhof Fuchshaus 9.  Buckow 10. Leipzig 11. Großer Stechlinsee 12. Hiddensee 13. Der Darß 14. Güstrow - Barlach 15. Absolution The following are excerpts from the poem. Click here to send comments or request the full text of the poem. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1 Prelude Your are lost in virtual terrain, and I only have words to send out as recovery probes. The slice of bread you left untouched, is a booby-trap. Dressed in white, on a halcyon summer day, you loiter, in a sunny marble hall, towards a blind balcony. Encased in stone, your energy is sapped, no flights, no leaf or branch; your milk is wasted. Banned under frosty sky, You embark on a voyage in dark silk. Within the destructible memory, in a labyrinth of black winds, you hear your body screaming. A rush of light -- the blue sea, a bright shore, peeping out through apertures in the winds. Flames collapse within flames -- The white night dawns; Butterflies tear the net and escape; your muted cry is fading -- matt silence on gray waters. (...)  8 Berlin-Karolinenhof Fuchshaus It survived bombardments and perishable summers -- Unrevivable gramophone -- noises of gatherings and banquets. Subdued voices during births. Aroma of clothes and furniture. Spiced cold air. Voices, ensnared in the library, and in nearby pine woods. The market effervescence is over and youth is spent. Light expanding in clothes fluttering in the wind. Strawberries -- their last awakening. Sitting close to your skin, your hand takes refuge in my horrified hand. Love is relishable, when destructive to itself. Coffee-and-cake afternoons; we transcended in persons who went away with our fragments. We lost track of the larger tribe. A residue of joy remained the resurrection of the Indian bamboo after the rainy spring; joy at its departure in autumn; at our inoffensive negligence, of birds deprived of cherries. Pain in the morning -- impels flesh to procreation. Pain of sleep -- of meaningful lunch, of juice diluted with soda water. Pain we adore and loathe, our secure knowledge. 9 Buckow Shaded road -- poppies glowing in the umbrage of garden shadows. They return from their adventure to spiced liqueurs in the country house; wipe dust from cups and plates, and exchange annual news. We feed each other -- love is feeding. Enveloped in dryness, we long to be nowhere. (...) 12 Hiddensee They dropped their tears in the hermetically sealed skin of night; and shoals of herring spawned in the sea. Places never reveal their essence -- Caustic landscapes are they, uncompromising if revisited; A second stay, we now know, is a last encounter. Yet we have traveled so long to distract our souls. The sea is cold and the air is dark. Here, glaciers left behind stones and sand; bombers roared in the night, and waves slapped the sky. All these innocent things around, the airmen, the sailors from inland harbours, are splashes on the surface of the sea. (...) Anwar Al-Ghassani November 1997- October 1998