paul celan

Alchemical

Silence, cooked like gold,
in charred
hands.

Great, grey
sisterly shape
near like all that is lost:

All the names, all those
names
burnt with the rest. So much
ash to be blessed. So much
land won
above
the weightless, so weightless
rings
of souls.

Great, grey one.cinder-
less.

You, then.
You with the pale
bit-open bud,
you in the wine-flood.

(Us too, don't you think,
this clock dismissed?
Good,
good how your word died past us here.)

Silence, cooked like gold, in
charred, charred
hands.
Insubstantial as smoke. Like crests, crests of air
around --

Great, grey one. Wake-
less.
Re-
gal one.


trans Michael Hamburger