Wolf’s-Bean, By Paul Celan

. . . O

You flowers of Germany, O my heart is

turning

To crystal that cannot lie, in which

The light is tested when . . . Germany

Holderlin: “For from the Abyss . . .”

. . . just as in the houses of Jews (as a

reminder of ruined Jerusalem) something

must always be left unfinished . . .

Jean Paul (Richter): The Campanian Valley

Push the bolt to: There

are roses in the house.

There are

seven roses in the house.

There is

the seven-branched candelabrum.

Our

child

knows it and sleeps.

(Far away, in Mikhailovka, in

the Ukraine, where

they murdered my father and mother: what

flowered there, what

flowers there? What

flower, Mother,

hurt you there

with its name?

You, Mother,

who said

wolf’s-bean, not:

lupin.

Yesterday

one of them came and

killed you

once more in

my poem.

Mother.

Mother, whose

hand did I clasp

when with your

words I went to

Germany?

At Aussig, you always said, at

Aussig on

the Elbe,

in

flight.

Mother, murderers

lived there.

Mother, I’ve

written letters.

Mother, no answer came.

Mother, an answer did come.

Mother, I’ve

written letters to--

Mother, those people write poems,

Mother, they would not write them

but for the poem that

I wrote, for

your sake, for

your

God’s

sake.

Praised be, you said,

the Eternal and

lauded, three

times

Amen.

Mother, they are silent.

Mother, they permit

vileness to slander me.

Mother, no one

interrupts when the murderers talk.

Mother, they write poems.

O

Mother, how much

most alien of ploughland bears your fruit!

Bears it and nourishes

those who kill!

Mother, I

am lost.

Mother, we

are lost.

Mother, my child

who resembles you.)

Push the bolt to: There

are roses in the house.

There are

seven roses in the house.

There is

the seven-branched candelabrum.

Our

child

knows it and sleeps.

--OCTOBER 21, 1959

From “Wolfsbohne / Wolf’s Bean” by Paul Celan, translated by Michael Hamburger (Delos Press: 20 pp., $40)