over and over again against the loam
in the dark of the tunnel, barned and silent, forever.
And you would do with me as you did with them."
Version
by
David Ferry
PAUL CELAN
Flower*
The stone.
The stone in the air which I followed .
Your eyes as blind as the stone.
We were
hands.
We scooped the darkness empty, we found the
word coming up the summer:
flower.
Flower - a word of the blind:
your eye and my eye
take care of
the watering.
Growth,
with its heartwalls are leafing
too.
One more word like this, and the hammers
swing free.
*Translator's Note: These poems were originally published in the volume
Atemwel1de,
with the ex–
ception of "Flower," which originally appeared in
Sprachgitter. Speech-grille.
