Illustration of Christian Morgenstern studying a plant and a stone in the grass

What the plant owes the stone

Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914) was a German poet. His poem The Washing of Feet begins by addressing the quietest of companions. A voice speaks to a stone from which it can scarcely expect an answer. Only the last line of the stanza tells us who is speaking: a plant. If we assumed that the “I” in the first two lines belonged to a human being, the third line sends us back to read them again. Bending towards the ground becomes both a gesture of thanks and something one can picture a plant stem doing.

Why the poem begins with a stone

What the plant owes the stone is remarkably precise: its life as a plant. It does not give thanks for a particular present or for anything the stone has gone out of its way to do. It acknowledges that its very way of being depends on something it did not bring into the world itself. The stone needs neither a voice nor goodwill to deserve this thanks. Its silence does not make the address a failed conversation. Even something without intentions is allowed to be the one to whom the speaker turns.

I thank you, silent stone,
and bend down towards you:
I owe you my life as a plant.

– Christian Morgenstern, Wir fanden einen Pfad, p. 55.[1]

When gratitude changes direction

Animals and human beings enter the later stanzas. Again and again a voice bends towards what came before it. Had the poem stopped there, it might have read like a simple staircase with humanity at the top. But Morgenstern lets a “we” reply. Now those addressed in the earlier stanzas give thanks in turn to the human child. Once gratitude changes direction, the staircase looks different too. Whatever seems to stand above the rest can neither replace nor leave behind what lies below it. The title prepares us for this reversal. To wash another’s feet, one has to bend one’s own body towards them. That small gesture makes a relationship visible before anyone puts it into a doctrine.