What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt includes 71 poems that were written over a 38-year period of Arendt’s life, beginning in 1923. The three poems appearing here were written in notebooks marked “June 1950 to 1971”; Arendt carried those notebooks to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, Germany a few months before her death in 1975. In her introduction to the collection, translator Samantha Hill notes that Arendt “relies upon the language of atmosphere to capture feelings of longing, restlessness, melancholia, frustrated love, and death.” Twenty-one poems were written between 1923-26, some of which reflect her relationship with Martin Heidegger. Both the liaison and the poems were kept confidential until Arendt’s archive was opened after 1980. After 1926, she wrote no poetry for 16 years. In 1942, while fleeing Germany and heading to America via Spain, she resumed writing with a poem dedicated to Walter Benjamin whose grave she attempted to locate along the way. — Nancy Naomi Carlson
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B’s Grave
November 1
On the hill under the tree
between the setting sun and rising moon
hangs your grave,
Keeping time in a state of death,
in the setting of the sun,
in the rising of the moon.
Under the firmament, above the earth,
down from the heavens, up toward the sky
rests your grave.
[“B” refers to Hermann Broch. The poem was written in 1942.]
* * *
B’s Grab
- November.
Auf dem Hügel unter dem Baum
zwischen sinkender Sonne und steigendem Mond
Hängt Dein Grab,
Schwingt sich ein in das Totsein,
in das Sinken der Sonne,
in das Steigen des Monds.
Unter dem Himmel, über der Erde,
vom Himmel herab, zum Himmel hinan
ruht Dein Grab.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
September 18, 1953
The past comes and walks by your side once more.
Don’t change your heart, don’t be charmed.
Don’t linger, take leave of the time
And hold on to your gratitude and enchantment
With an averted glance.
[Translator’s note: “It is possible this poem was written for Martin Heidegger’s sixty-fourth birthday on September 26, 1953, and enclosed in a letter … This poem appears in one of her notebooks from 1953, but she did not add it to her poems from 1953 when she collect ed them.”]
* * *
September 18, 1953
Das Alte kommt und gibt Dir nochmals das Geleit.
Kehr nicht das Herz und lass Dich nicht berücken,
Verweile nicht, nimm Abschied von der Zeit
Und wahre Dir den Dank und das Entzücken
Mit abgewandtem Blick.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
February 21, 1954
Clarity shines
in every depth;
sound intones
every silence.
Wake up the quiet —
May it sleep!
Illuminate the dark
That created us.
Light breaks
like a note
inn the darkness
sounding each silence.
Only the silence
— what we do not know
of darkness —
heralds our final appearance.
* * *
21. Februar 1954
Helle scheint
in jede Tiefe;
Laut ertönt
in jeder Stille.
Weckt das Stumme —
dass es schliefe! —
hellt das Dunkel,
dass uns schuf.
Licht bricht
alle Finsternisse,
Töne singen
jedes Schweigen.
Nur die Ruh’
im Ungewissen
dunkelt still
das letzte Zeigen.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
Reprinted from What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt by Hannah Arendt. Copyright © 2025 by The Hannah Arendt Estate, Samantha Hill, and Genese Grill. Used with permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
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