Gardener
Gardener
The book is "The Gardener" (2024, originally published in 1913) by Indian poet and musician Rabindranath Tagore.
Who are you, the one reading my poems a hundred years from now?
I cannot give you a single flower from this bountiful spring wealth, nor a streak of gold floating on a distant cloud.
Open your door and look outside.
From your blooming garden, gather fragrant memories of flowers that disappeared a century ago.
May the voice of the joy of living that once sang on a spring morning reach you across a hundred years, and may you feel it with joy in your heart.
(Psalm 85)
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These are lyric poems about love and life, which I have translated myself from Bengali. They were written before the religious poems included in the collection of English prose poems, Gitanjali. The English translations are not necessarily literal, but are abridged or paraphrased. Rabindranath Tagore
(From the book's "Preface")
The poet's words, which empathize with the faith, purity, and poverty of the peasants, somehow evoke the Japanese wabi-sabi. Because it is a collection of prose poems, each poem can be read like a short story. (Ammel)