Bitter Memory

``Look what I have,'' she cried, exhibiting with pride, ``a piece of the Wall.'' I looked at the fragment and thought of the souvenir hunter in each, in all who brought home a matchbook, a program, a spoon, a meteor chip, or pebble from the moon.

Once, in the wagons rolling west, men brought a plant, a vine, a handful of seeds in the hope that though they left their homes forever, they took their landscapes with them to recreate an image of the homeland wherever they might go.

But here was a remnant of bitter memory: a prison symbol separating brothers, dividing families and parting lovers - halving a land against itself and of no value except for being gone.