Typical of the conflicted reactions of the West German Left is Peter Schutt's prologue to an illustrated book about the moving scenes of the night between the 9th and the 10th of November, when Berlin men and women disbelievingly, with tears of joy in their eyes, went past the GDR borderguards and fell into eachother's arms.

The Fall of the Wall

when the Wall fell
a stone fell
from my heart too.

And the piece of
concrete that had grown into me from the Wall
right into my brain
was suddenly gone.

Yet the headache
remained. And vertigo
came on me, as I went
with no hands over the ruin
of the structure
that had so often held me up
whenever I stood
with my back to the wall.

Scared, I gazed
into the void.
Where there used to be
the icon wall
stopping all sight
now gapes an empty hole.

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