{"id":16894,"date":"2020-11-23T09:44:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T14:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=16894"},"modified":"2020-11-23T09:44:32","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T14:44:32","slug":"a-poem-or-something-a-gift-a-song-for-paul-celan-at-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/a-poem-or-something-a-gift-a-song-for-paul-celan-at-100\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem or something, a gift, a song, for Paul Celan at 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Her hand giant shadow<\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u2014 mit Bleistift<\/i><\/h3>\n

on ceiling with night<\/h3>\n

reading light<\/h3>\n

pillowed between us \u2014<\/h3>\n

graphites an unseen<\/h3>\n

page, on which<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ll write, standing up<\/h3>\n

in the kitchen,<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the good, no<\/h3>\n

the best thing about<\/h3>\n

night is it is<\/h3>\n

always a pre-<\/h3>\n

dawn.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It goes way back,<\/h3>\n

1\/2 time between your birth<\/h3>\n

& now, I<\/h3>\n

with a double breath-<\/h3>\n

turn (yours & mine),<\/h3>\n

embarked\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0before take-off<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0father had asked for<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0a shakehand\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

(a poem is that<\/h3>\n

you said and<\/h3>\n

then let go) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0in<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0not my mother-<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0tongue\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0in my future<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0language he knew reversed<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0from early 1945 camp<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0fires in another night,<\/h3>\n

a<\/h3>\n

darker one you<\/h3>\n

knew too.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What had freed father,<\/h3>\n

drew me over,<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0(you already knew better<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0had \u2014August \u201949\u2014 heard<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Gordon Heath sing climbing<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0jacob\u2019s ladder, \u201ctwice he sang it, at<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the beginning and at the end\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 & in between strange fruit<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 & a fraught encounter with<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the blond Northerner still &<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 always freed fascist \u201cdoing Paris\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 at your table in, not on, the \u00e9chelle)\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

and we are climbing some kind of ladder<\/h3>\n

different for each as should be<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0you to Paris<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0me to New York<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0both with faith only in no faith<\/h3>\n

the right to blaspheme<\/h3>\n

as first right left<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0after the third reich fell then<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0& now the first empire here<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>is falling down<\/h3>\n

falling down.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My first crossing<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0(between your visit to Heidegger<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0& your first trip to Berlin)<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ferried me across the Charlie Gibbs<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0fracture zone a transform fault dis-<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 places the Mid-Atlantic Ridge,<\/h3>\n

lands me in a \u201cthickness:\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to be understood from the geological,\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and thus from the slow\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

catastrophes & the dreadful fault-<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0lines of language \u2014\u2014\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but it is there<\/h3>\n

in the faultlines that writing starts.<\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 You wrote:<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cColumbus,<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0eyeing the autumn-<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0colchis, the mother-<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0flower,<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0murdered masts and sails. Everything set forth,<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0free,\u201d (but we ban<\/h3>\n

that late loser, found<\/h3>\n

& lost<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0by people he murdered,\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

another, our, atonement, I, here still<\/h3>\n

fifty years after your death \u2014<\/h3>\n

which is not that of the book, that buch-,<\/h3>\n

that buch-<\/h3>\n

stable staff as<\/h3>\n

the beech is as the tree is the book the Buche<\/h3>\n

from your Book-, your Buk-<\/h3>\n

-ovina, the<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0first book, the one that<\/h3>\n

has the autumn crocus<\/h3>\n

only only a secret echo\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0of the literally timeless,\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

name of their colchique,\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0our autumn crocus<\/h3>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0called up by reality<\/h3>\n

to meet again in the imagination<\/h3>\n

of your city, my city<\/h3>\n

all gathered in<\/h3>\n

one stands brightly on no<\/h3>\n

hill but by the sea, even if a black<\/h3>\n

sea, even if Colchis<\/h3>\n

is & is not\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

New York<\/h3>\n

from where I greet you<\/h3>\n

this morning<\/h3>\n

on your hundredth birth<\/h3>\n

day.<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her hand giant shadow \u00a0\u2014 mit Bleistift on ceiling with night reading light pillowed between us \u2014 graphites an unseen page, on which I\u2019ll write, standing up in the kitchen, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1237,83,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autobiography","category-paul-celan","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16894"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16904,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions\/16904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}