05 21 18
Hallo Berlin
I was told you’d be gray. Brutal and muscular. Told about bristled faces and damp eyes, stone broken into grit, cold hands in pockets, and somber like the temperament of boulders. Gray, they said. But gray I learned is a blend. Extremes in gradient. No one said gray could be filled with memory. Or that gray was awake. Berlin is stirring, you see. Stirring. Where, together are things once parted. Stirring, which is to say: changing, which is to say: activated. Visibility so. Bold graffiti tattoo the buildings where Mercedes are built. Gray. Like smiles exploding sunlight from grim cheeks. Gray. As the women in yellow hats breaking bread around bowls of beetroot soup. Gray. As the boys dressed like pieces of art—dancing hard in clubs to defy the sun. Gray like people praying with Caribbean accents at the memorial for murdered Jews. East and West pendulum swings from Mansions to Mad Max, its crown a blurred line. And scars centuries cannot live away, yet live with. Sullen and vibrant. Quiet and expressive. Civil and willing. Stirring. Stirring. Stirring. Until gray is a rainbow painted onto stone. Repeatedly. Until gray makes up all the colors stirred together.
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