After a back-racking day in the garden, this translation of a poem by the Dutch writer Ida Gerhardt

GEORGICA

Labor improbus

I am a gardener, nothing more,

with earth and muck bespattered sore;

I stretch up tall, I bend down low

I tightly clasp my spade and hoe.

I weed, observe my deepest law

when planting seedlings frail and raw:

I bend down low, I stretch up tall.

A gardener am I, that is all.

I go home stiffly in the shade,

pain racks both groin and shoulder blade.

I still keep watch when rest I may.

My land, my land: brief is the day.

Prepare for me a wedge of ground,

forget where I lie safe and sound.

Past trouble, need and pain must be

a garden strewn with stars for me.

To see the original poem, go to here