“North Star Flower”
for Fernsehturm—Far-seeing (TV) Tower, Berlin
Blossom of light at night,
true North shining bright.
Every German city has one,
far-seeing, cloud-sprung.
This one reflects the setting sun
accidentally as a cross—
the revenge of the church, across
the old dividing wall of faith.
One empire fell to another,
sent its wraith.
What relics will we leave the next?
What accidental mooring for the perplexed—
to be dug out of sand or stone,
or stumbled across in the ocean alone?
How shall we say across spaces and times
that we knew, as we lived it, how history rhymes?
