The old gardener sees
that feet slip on
the ladder
that leads to the top
and he sees
that even in an abyss
where it’s so easy to fall into
climbing begins
again

The old gardener
prompts:
if a situation
is a tense one
rose cannot be made
of wax
and the apples from
the forbidden tree
don’t always turn
into red lanterns

This is a short, lovely and really obscure poem, which I’m posting here due to several reasons. First of all, I found Wernerowa’s poetry totally by chance, on a forgotten shelf in a local library, a few feet below Polish Poetry plate, and it turned out that I am the first person who wanted to read it since 1999. Then I translated it into English so, all in all, this poem feels so mine now
The other reason is that the idea of the Gardener as a wise, elderly man, who seems to know much more than an average human being and is closely connected with the Nature, immediately made me think of “The Beekeeper” (despite the fact that The Beekeeper is a woman). And… even though I’m not certain how to interpret some metaphors here (or maybe because of this ), I can’t help loving it.

(big thanks to Samke, who taught me the trick of posting very long things )

Love,
G