REMEMBRANCES OF FRANKFURT
A Turkish Family
(First half 1984)
There they sit, so nestled together
On a park bench, a closely knit family
So isolated, how they must depend upon one another
This Turkish clan knitting their way through destiny.
There you see them all, children, father and mother
Here they come to earn their money
In order that they may do better
This Turkish clan knitting their way through destiny.
Here they stand out, the women with their heads covered
It must be, coming to a strange country, very lonely
Their strength unrecognized, how they should be admired
This Turkish clan knitting their way through destiny.
How playful the children are with their smiling faces
Will they ever return to Turkey?
I ask myself as I watch them go though their paces
This Turkish clan knitting their way through destiny.
Holzhaousen Park
(First half 1984)
Sunbathers lying in steams of brightly-colored yellow
Every sunny, warm day do you see them there
Naked, relaxed, care-free, hoping to mellow
In a park that has seem so many and is so willing to serve.
Toddlers and youngsters mindlessly going about their play
In and out they came, thousands through the years
Too busy to ever stop to think about their stay
In the park that memory brings for me so many tears.
Mothers with their strollers so proudly do they walk
Adding to that tradition of toddlers, youngsters, and sunbathers
No need for them to ever talk
For that park has already heard the best of so many others.
Painlessly does this park provide so compactly
A refuge from the city’s shadows that can be so dark
The bright, open green space that is so lovely
That which is known as Holzaousen Park.
Rebstock Bad
(first half 1984)
See the motion, people, people everywhere, and also water, water
Children playing and adults too, in total abandon-ness
Echoes soothing, total escaping sounds, how they cater
To our needs of relaxation, fantasy, and playfulness.
A smartly designed sanctum for swimming and playing
Interconnected, by curving in and out swim-ways, are pools of varying sizes
A capability to move and wave water over and over continuously coming
This is Rebstock Bad, a place that brought us so many prizes.
How nice the movement of the water on the body and the being
The total immersion from the rest of the world into oblivion
The warmth, the shower, the exercise, the let-go-ness of swimming
A chance to touch, to feel, to see, to grow closer to Max as he swam on and on.
Oh how we had so much fun at Rebstock Bad
So glad am I that Frankfurt did build
A bad so very nice for the stadt
To meet the needs of people, people as a city should.
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Frankfurt
(first half 1984)
The Dom and the Roemer peering out at each other, along the river Main, drawing crowds to a newly awakened city pride.
High-rise bank buildings, dotting the city sky, shadowing the city’s metropolitan-ness, bringing together bankers, technocrats and artists.
1910 houses, all like mansions, several floors high, with sculptured extensions, monuments to an age of past pride.
The Zeil, Hauptwache, the new old opera, results of a revamped city so well planned, bankers mingling, technocrats studying, and sidewalk artists.
Buses, Strassenbahns, U-Bahns and S-Bahns, busily carrying people here and there, and everywhere they want to go.
No left turns, one-way streets and coordinated stoplights, speeding vehicles along their way, in apparently effortless motion.
Busy city airport, flowing people in and out, an international interconnecting key, ferrying people where they want to go.
Orange-jacketed street cleaners, with medieval looking brooms, making the city clean before it awakes, in apparently effortless motion.
Appplewein, rippchen, sauerkraut and Sachenhausen, crowds after six, gathering together crowded along wooden tables.
Outdoor seating, waiters busily scurrying, dozens of restaurants, filled with customers, eagerly enjoying the long days evenings.
Konditorei cafes, cozy places to spend cloudy and rainy Saturday afternoons, people slipping coffee, sitting around crowded tables.
Sunbathers out along the Main and in Grueneburg Park, worm sunny summer days that couldn’t be prettier, waiting for the cool evenings.
This is Frankfurt and its view to me
As I have lived here during the past four years
So now I must say goodbye to you from me
I hope that I can see you again in future years.