A Celan Poem

Gisèle Celan-Lestrange, from "Schwarzmaut" series of engravings

For the pleasure of this cold, clear Monday morning, the poem “Mit allen Gedanken” by Paul Celan from his volume Die Niemandsrose. It has been my pleasure to spend some time with this work just now, englishing it. PC himself referred to it (after someone’s misreading) as a love poem for Gisèle, & therefore the etching by Gisèle-Lestrange above, though that dates from a later series. (Still unable to insert breaks between stanzas in poems when formatting for WordPress blog, I had to insert a “-” to indicate a stanza break. If anyone has figured out how to format poetry with spaces and insets, please let me know!)

With all thoughts I went

out of the world: there you were,

you, my quiet my open one, you —

who took us in.

–

Who

says that all died for us

when our eyes broke?

All awoke, all started up.

–

A sun, large, swam toward us, brightly

soul and soul stood against it, clear,

forcefully they confronted it in

silence with their orbit:

–

Easily

your lap opened up, gently

a breath rose into the ether,

and what shaped itself into a cloud, was it not,

was it not a figure we created,

was it not

as good as a name?

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