Night Ray Poem by Paul Celan

Paul Celan

Paul Celan

(Cernăuţi, Bukovin) Chernivtsi, Ukraine

Night Ray

Rating: 3.1


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:
it talks as I do when I grant admittance to hearts.
It knows a French song about love, I sang it in autumn
when I stopped as a tourist in Lateland and wrote my letters
to morning.

A fine boat is that coffin carved in the coppice of feelings.
I too drift in it downbloodstream, younger still than your eye.
Now you are young as a bird dropped dead in March snow,
now it comes to you, sings you its love song from France.
You are light: you will sleep through my spring till it's over.
I am lighter:
in front of strangers I sing.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Fabrizio Frosini 18 May 2015

I'm fond of this poem, too. It stays between a love poem and an elegy.. it is both

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Paul Celan

Paul Celan

(Cernăuţi, Bukovin) Chernivtsi, Ukraine
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