Paul Celan Poems

Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.
From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:
then time returns to the shell.
...

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
...

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink it and drink it
we are digging a grave in the sky it is ample to lie there
...

No-man kneads us again out of Earth and Loam,
no-man spirits our Dust.
No-man.
...

not on my lips look for your mouth,
not in front of the gate for the stranger,
not in the eye for the tear.
...

Your hand full of hours, you came to me – and I said:
‘Your hair is not brown.’
You lifted it, lightly,
on to the balance of grief,
it was heavier than I.
...

The stone.
The stone in the air, which I followed.
Your eye, as blind as the stone.
...

Most brightly of all burned the hair of my evening loved one:
to her I send the coffin of lightest wood.
Waves billow round it as round the bed of our dream in Rome;
it wears a white wig as I do and speaks hoarsely:
...

I formed the holder of gold,
as you told me to mother,
gold, out of which She comes,
a shade, to me, in the middle
of fracturing hours,
your
being-dead’s daughter.
...

tall poplars -- human beings of this earth!
black pounds of happiness -- you mirror them to death!

I saw you, sister, stand in that effulgence.
...