I know I am playing to populist sentiment here. But what's supposedly outlawed in politics (though all politicians practice it, of course, being enamored of power and afraid of the next election) is still allowed in poetry. In poetry, in fact, my heretically simple mind prefers the poem of the popular poet to that of the learned one. (No need to mention some poetae docti with Nobel prizes, is there?) Because, as the old Romans also said, vox populi, vox dei. If I may paraphrase: The voice of God is the voice of the common folk, not the voice of the erudite. Though even though such an erudite, esoteric and iconoclastic composer as Alban Berg did set this very poem to music.
But let's get back to what's popular. Roses are, of course, and even on this small website three fall poems mention them: those of
Rückert, Kalbeck and Gerok. Many poems - in German, English or otherwise - use similar imagery.
In the context of this poem, I owe a debt of gratitude to two people: To my mother who loved it and often recited it to me, and to Bertram Kottmann, a compatriot of Flaischlen's and a great translator, who set me straight on which was this Swabian poet's Christian and which was his family name.
Well, I admit it. All I had to do was to search for a nice website of Cäsar Flaischlen and I would have known. And should have known. Embarrassing! Depressing! But then, as Flaischlen said in perhaps his best-loved poem, I should have Sonne im Herzen (sun in the heart)! With my mother pleading for me, I am sure I will receive the poet's forgiveness...