🇬🇧 Wittgenstein’s Garden (2)

Wittgenstein’s Garden (2)

895.    Herbal garden and kitchen greens
           facing south over the river.
        Monks living in cloister stone,
           mortar and rectangular systems.
        People with a special urge
           for the laying of paths.

896.    Monks weeding the garden,
           Mumbling among the roots.
        Spreading words among worts;
           let the ants take them.
        Many hundred years here
           at Hütteldorf Monastary.

897.    A garden assistant, just arrived,
           lives in the garden shed.
        Hard to tell man from tool,
           stiff arms, good grip.
        Self-conversing during the day
           garden gnome at night.

898.    On his knees out there,
           talking level to the ground
        Fingers loosening clay and soil
           rubbing hardened clumps.
        Fingertips on flower colours,
           nursing, digging, playing

899.    Vos colours are tangible
           on the skein, in the petals.
        Yellow is hard, blue is brittle,
           red trembles, green trickles
        Ve mix colours, mix veself,
           ve suck up colours.

900.    This cultivator of dictionaries
           and wielder of tools,
        With soil under his nails
           and colours on his fingers;
        All the words that crumble
           in the encounter with plants.


In the summer of 1920, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) took a job as a gardening assistant in the Hütteldorf Monastary, Austria, perhaps by way of therapy. Almost nothing is known of this episode. Wittgenstein’s essay Remarks on Colour was published posthumously in 1971.


New in Index Ten Thousand:
River • 895, Path-construction • 895, Wort • 896, Arm • 897, Dig  898, Green  899, Word • 900,