Paul Celan

Cover of The Meridian by Paul Celan Edited by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull Translated by Pierre Joris 

LANGUAGE MESH

Eye’s roundness between the bars.

Vibratile monad eyelid
propels itself upward,
releases a glance.

Iris, swimmer, dreamless and dreary:
the sky, heart-grey, must be near.

Athwart, in the iron holder,
the smoking splinter.
By its sense of light
you divine the soul.

(If I were like you. If you were like me.
Did we not stand
under one trade wind?
We are strangers.)

The flagstones. On them,
close to each other, the two
heart-grey puddles:
two
mouthsfull of silence.

                        Michael Hamburger, trans.

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