The Garden of Theophrastus

for my son

When at noon the white fire of verses
Flickering dances above the urns,
Remember, my son. Remember the vanished
Who planted their conversations like trees.
The garden is dead, more heavy my breathing,
Preserve the hour, here Theophrastus walked,
With oak bark to feed the soil and enrich it,
To bandage with fibre the wounded bole.
An olive splits the brickwork grown brittle
And still is a voice on the mote-laden heat.
Their order was to fell and uproot it,
Their light is fading, defenceless leaves.

Translated by Michael Hamburger

This new edition of The Garden of Theophrastus brings back into print one of Germany’s finest recent poets, in translations by his close friend Michael Hamburger. Peter Huchel (1903–1981) wrote amidst the political turmoil of twentieth-century Germany before the country’s re-unification. A highly influential figure in the former East Germany, he edited the magazine Sinn und Form there until 1962 but was dismissed for indulging too ‘liberal’ a policy. Before that break, and through the hardship of the Second World War and its vexed aftermath, he maintained a poetry of humane commitment, formal invention and precision.