Nighthouse
by Ann Lauinger
Im Nachthaus die Reime, der Atem im Kot, / … / ein Stein, / der die Teufelsstiege umgeht.
(In the nighthouse, rhymes; breath in the muck, / … / a stone / that circumvents the devil’s stair.)
–Paul Celan, “Wohin mir”
1. How is it a man takes a knife in the heart
and lives?
Those sighs froze the eagle’s shriek
but he rebuffed the air,
suffered the earth
choked into music.
2. The constellations, at least, didn’t swoon
to his songs.
Fret of breath in the muck,
everything mollescent
before its pliant power.
He nailed his star
to the ooze and looked back.
3. Miracles are intolerable.
The severed head of Orpheus
at last falls dumb. Eurydice
gives thanks for the stone,
for what the poet has become.
that circumvents the devil’s stair
Read “Once” by Paul Celan translated by Daniel Tobin
Read “Imagine It” by Paul Celan translated by Daniel Tobin
