{"id":17124,"date":"2022-03-12T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-12T14:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=17124"},"modified":"2022-03-12T09:11:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T14:11:08","slug":"black-flakes-schwarze-flocken-celan-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/black-flakes-schwarze-flocken-celan-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"“Black Flakes \/ Schwarze Flocken:” Celan & Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This poem, probably written in or after July 1944, most likely in Czernowitz, today Chernivtsi, after returning from the forced labor-camp he had been interned in. The ms. has his note: “In memory of the snow at railway station Pascani, workcamp Radazani,” referring to the village of Pascani in Moldavia. It was probably then that he learned of the death of his parents, Leo & Fritzi Antschel who had been deported into camps situated in Transnistria, on Ukrainian soil (in early 1944 he still thought that they had survived.) Celan included it in his first book of poems, Der Sand aus den Urnen \/ The Sand from the Urns<\/em>, which he had destroyed because of the many typos. He didn’t include the poem in his next book, Mohn und Ged\u00e4chtnis \/ Poppy and Memory<\/em>, & I thus didn’t translate it for my Paul Celan: Memory\u00a0Rose into Threshold\u00a0Speech \u2014 \u00a0Collected Earlier Poetry<\/i> (FSG, 2020). But did so now, as Ukraine & death are much on our minds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BLACK FLAKES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Snow fell, lightless. One moon
\nit has been or two, that autumn in monkish habit
\nbrought news to me too, a leaf from Ukrainian scarps:<\/p>\n

\u201cThink, that here too it winters, for the thousand\u2019s time now
\nin the country where the widest river flows:
\nJaacob\u2019s heavenly blood, blessed by axes\u2026
\nO ice of unearthly redness \u2014 there wades your Hetman with full
\nretinue in the darkening suns\u2026 Child, oh a cloth,
\nto wrap myself in, when it shines helmets,
\nwhen the clod, the pinkish one, breaks open, when snowy your father\u2019s
\nbones scatter, under the hoofs crush
\nthe Song of the Cedar\u2026
\nA scarf, a narrow scarflet, that I safeguard
\nnow, as weeping you learn, on my side
\nthe narrowness of the world, that never greens, my child, your child!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mother, autumn, it bled away for me, the snow, it burned me:
\nsearch for my heart I did, that it may weep, the breath I did find, oh that of summer,
\nlike you it was.
\nCame my tear. Wove I the scarflet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SCHWARZE FLOCKEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schnee ist gefallen, lichtlos. Ein Mond
\nist es schon oder zwei, da\u00df der Herbst unter m\u00f6nchischer Kutte
\n<\/span>Botschaft brachte auch mir, ein Blatt aus ukrainischen Halden:<\/p>\n

\u201cDenk, da\u00df es wintert auch hier, zum tausendstenmal nun
\nim Land, wo der breiteste Strom flie\u00dft:
\nJaakobs himmlisches Blut, benedeiet von \u00c4xten . . .
\nO Eis von unirdischer R\u00f6te \u2013 es watet ihr Hetman mit allem
\n<\/span>Tro\u00df in die finsternden Sonnen . . . Kind, ach ein Tuch,
\n<\/span>mich zu h\u00fcllen darein, wenn es blinket von Helmen,
\nwenn die Scholle, die rosige, birst, wenn schneeig st\u00e4ubt das Gebein
\ndeines Vaters, unter den Hufen zerknirscht
\ndas Lied von der Zeder . . .
\nEin Tuch, ein T\u00fcchlein nur schmal, da\u00df ich wahre
\n<\/span>nun, da zu weinen du lernst, mir zur Seite
\ndie Enge der Welt, die nie gr\u00fcnt, mein Kind, deinem Kinde!\u201d<\/p>\n

Blutete, Mutter, der Herbst mir hinweg, brannte der Schnee mich:
\n<\/span>sucht ich mein Herz, da\u00df es weine, fand ich den Hauch, ach des Sommers,
\n<\/span>war er wie du.
\nKam mir die Tr\u00e4ne. Webt ich das T\u00fcchlein.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem, probably written in or after July 1944, most likely in Czernowitz, today Chernivtsi, after returning from the forced labor-camp he had been interned in. The ms. has his note: “In memory of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,91,103],"tags":[1730],"class_list":["post-17124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paul-celan","category-poetry","category-translation","tag-paul-celan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124","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=17124"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17136,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions\/17136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}