WHITE AND LIGHT

Sickle dunes, uncounted.

In wind-shadow, thousandfold,
you. You and the arm
With which naked I grew towards you,
lost one.

The beams. They blow us together.
We bear the brightness, the pain and the name.

White
what moves
us, without
weight
what we
exchange. White
and Light:
let it drift.

The distance, moon-near, like us. They
build. They build the cliff
where the drift
breaks, they build
on:
with light-froth and wave turned to foam.

The drift that beckons from
cliffs. It beckons
brows to come near,
those brows we were
lent for mirroring’s sake.

The brows.
We roll with them
there. To a shore of
brows.

Are you

asleep? Sleep.
Ocean mill turns,
ice-bright and
unheard, in our eyes.

Poems of Paul Celan
(translated by M.Hamburger  – Persea Books, New York 2002)