Gingo Biloba
The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.
Is it one living thing
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?
I think I have found the right answer
To these questions;
Do my songs not make you feel
That I am both one and twain?
To honour the ginkgo, German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote the above poem. This poem is Goethe’s anthology >Westoestlicher Diwan< and is Goethe’s homage for his former lover Marianne von Willemer, the “Suleika” of his poems.
The heart-shaped ginkgo leaf gives symbolic interpretation to Goethe’s theme, one and double. The specific ginkgo tree that inspired Goethe to write the poem in 1815, grew on the castles grounds in Heidelberg, Germany.
Gingo Biloba
The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.
Is it one living thing
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?
I think I have found the right answer
To these questions;
Do my songs not make you feel
That I am both one and twain?
To honour the ginkgo, German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote the above poem. This poem is Goethe’s anthology >Westoestlicher Diwan< and is Goethe’s homage for his former lover Marianne von Willemer, the “Suleika” of his poems.
The heart-shaped ginkgo leaf gives symbolic interpretation to Goethe’s theme, one and double. The specific ginkgo tree that inspired Goethe to write the poem in 1815, grew on the castles grounds in Heidelberg, Germany.