THREE CARROTS

English version by the author from the German on 9-3-1993

They were scraping carrots
in the pub by the moor,
somewhere in Germany,
to be sure,
when
on the first of September ’91,
they found these three carrots
intertwined into one,
just the way they’d been growing
beneath the ground,
a three-carrot union!

They passed it around,
with nimble fingers
turned it about.
“How can we scrape it?”
They asked in doubt.
“Hold on,
not so fast!”
One of them said,
“Let’s not lose our head.
Let’s commit them to memory.
That way they will last.
I propose a drawing, one each
of three sides
of this three-carrot union.
I declare this provides
ample proof, yes, I’m sure,
of what happened today
in the pub
by the moor.”

As soon as these drawings were made
they were run
as an ad for a “Poet” Competition,
what fun,
in “Idee und Bewegung”
a German zine
to which I subscribe.

The minute I saw it
I wanted to shout:
“It’s the nursery song, ‘The pointed Cap’!
That’s what this whole thing
is about.”

“There goes a pointed cap
in our midst around and around.
There goes a pointed cap in our midst around.
3 x 3 is 9, it is!
You know what I mean by this.
3 x 3 and 1 is 10.
Pointed cap,
stand still, stand still again.”

I turned the drawing
upside down and
though far-fetched, I deemed
these pointy carrots
pointed caps,
at least, that’s what they seemed.

Now, carrots are roots
with ancient cells.
They know when to ripen.
They seem to hear bells
when 3 x 3 and 1 is 10.

Would you like to know
when?

In the year
when 1 and 9 form the century,
then reverse themselves to make the year,
only one day
would match:

And here
is the catch:
So we’d remember
the first of September,
on 9-1, 19 91
(a 10 for each carrot)
those carrots were done.
Out of the ground they were pulled,
they were found
in the year the East
gave up their ground
and turned towards the West.
Now, let us not rest until we,
like those carrots of ’91,
who are themselves inseparable,
though uniquely themselves,
are always
one.