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Engraining

by Paul Celan

Consumed in

Open ground

with the unerring trail:

Grass, beating one against another, stones, white

with the shadows of the stalks:

Read no more - look!

Look no more - go!

Go, your hour

has no sisters, you are -

are at home. One wheel, slowly

rolls out of itself, the spokes

climb,

climb on the blackish field, the night

needs no stars, nowhere

it asks after you.

*

Nowhere,

it asks after you -

The place where they lay, it has

a name - it has

none. They don’t lay there. Something

lay between them. They

saw nothing through there.

Saw nothing, no,

Spoken from

Words. None

awake,

Sleep

came over them.

*

Came, came, Nowhere

it asks -

I am, i,

i lay between you, i was

open, was

hearable, i ticked to you, your breath

responded, i

Am still always it, yes

you sleep.

*

Am still always it -

Years.

Years, Years, a finger

tastes here and there, tastes

around:

Seams, feelable, here

It gapes wide apart, here

it grows together again - who

covered it so?

*

Covered it

so - who?

Came, came.

Came a word, came,

came through the night,

willed alight, willed alight.

Ash.

Ash, Ash.

Night.

Night-on-night. - goes to

the eye go to moisten them.

*

Goes to

the eye

to moisten them.

Hurricanes.

Hurricanes, from each

Particle blizzard the other,

you

know that, we

read in the book, was

Belief.

Was, was

Belief. How

we fasten ourselves

to it - to it with

these

Hands?

It also stands written, that.

Where? We

did stay silent about it,

breastfed poison, gross,

a

green

Silence, a sepal, it

hung on up the plantlike thought -

Green, yes

followed, yes

Under the spiteful

heaven.

Up, yes,

Plantlike.

Yes.

Hurricanes, Par-

ticle blizzard, stopped

Time, stopped,

it tried to stay by a stone - it

was hospitable, it

failed not a word. How

good we had it:

Grainy,

grainy and fibrous. Stalky,

thick;

grapy and radial; kidney-like,

flat and

lumpy; loose, branched-

out -: he, it

failed not a word, it

spoke,

spoke happily with dry eyes, eh before it closed them.

Spoke, spoke.

Was, was.

We

didn’t let loose, stood

in the middle, a

Pore mound, and

it came.

Came on to us, came

through, patched

invisible, patched

to the last membrane,

and

the world, a chandelier,

shot at, shot at.

*

Shot at, shot at.

Then -

Night, segregated, circles,

green or blue, red

Squares: the

World sets your insides

In play with the new

Hours. -Circles

red or black

Squares, no

Flight shadows,

no

Work table, no

rising playing with smoke-souls.

*

Rising and

playing with -

In the owl’s flight, by the

petrified leprosy,

by

our fleeing hands, at

the first refusal,

spilled

over the

Buttress of

the bullet-ridden wall:

visible, from

new: the

Flutes, the

Choir, all at once, the

Psalms. Ho, ho-

sanna.

Then

the temple still standing . A

Star

was still well alight.

Nothing,

nothing is lost.

Ho-

sanna.

In the owl’s flight, here,

The talking, grey day,

Of the groundwater trails.

*

(— day grey

of the

groundwater trails-

Consumed

in the open ground

with

the unerring

Trail:

Grass,

beating one against another.)

Mortality

by Paul Celan

We drink the black milk of dawn in the evening

we drink it at midday and in the morning we drink at night

we drink and drink

we shovel a grave in the airs there no one lays long

A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes while darkness falls over Germany

your golden hair Margarete

he writes and it goes before the house lighting the stars

he whistles his crassness all ’round

he whistles his Jews out and lets them shovel a grave in the earth

now he orders us to put on a song and dance

We drink the black milk of dawn at night

we drink in the morning and at midday we drink in the evening

we drink and drink

A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes

he writes while darkness falls over Germany

your golden hair Margarete

Your ashen hair Sulamith

we shovel a grave in the airs there no one lays long

He calls digging deeper in the rich soil you and the others sing and play

he grips his belt buckle he swings his eyes are blue

the spade digs deeper you and the others keep playing and dance on

We drink the black milk of dawn at night

we drink at midday and in the morning we drink in the evening

we drink and drink

A man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Sulamith he plays with the serpents

He calls play death sweeter death is a master from Germany

he calls play the violins darkly then they rise like smoke in the air

then they have a grave in the clouds there no one lays long

We drink the black milk of dawn at nights

we drink at midday and in the morning we drink and drink

death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue

he meets you with lead shot he meets you with precision

a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete

he goads us with his crassness he sends us a grave in the air

he plays with the serpents and dreams death is a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete

Your ashen hair Sulamith