Park. Berlin. Wildernis.
A ballad by Rachel Clarke on the resurrection of fascism in Germany and Europe.
The German translation is titled “Park. Berlin. Wildnis”.
R. and J. enjoy an outing to the Nature Park Southern Grounds in Berlin, a railway marshalling yard that was decommissioned at the end of World War II and has been allowed to run wild ever since. J. disappears and the narrator R. sets out to search for him.
When a train from the 1920s suddenly emerges from the foliage, it brings with it passengers who long for order and authoritarian rule. Past and present intertwine. Who are these people?
Park. Berlin. Wildernis.
I.
Terminal station.
Rusted iron.
Late afternoon ease.
Mossed tracks.
Back on the grass,
Nose in the breeze.
I listen…
No badgering bosses,
No rushing passersby,
No booming basses,
No mounting paper piles,
No scandalizing screens.
Silence.
Silver wind in the birch trees,
Expected rustling of leaves.
Distant thunder.
Absent lightning.
By my side, picnic debris,
Cigarillo stubbed out on passionfruit peel,
a bottle of ruban cask whisky, half-empty,
a fading book “the East Germans as Avantgarde”
a fragment of melted cheese,
me, meditating in the shade,
J. sunbathing, twitching in his sleep.
My eyes close too, off I doze.
II.
By my ear, untrodden earth thrives,
amasses ants, teams with toads,
The untamed thicket, rampant, in the unnatural heat,
Somewhere sheep bleat.
Bullfrogs croak sky-bent, demanding rain.
…
Duration of ballad in performance, 20 Min.