Home > Work > Nineteen Poems
1 " Your Hand Full of Hours”Your hand full of hours, you came to me - and I said:Your hair is not brown.So you lifted it lightly on to the scales of grief;it weighed more than I…On ships they come to you and make it their cargo, thenput it on sale in the markets of lust -You smile at me from the depth, I weep at you from thescale that stays light.I weep: Your hair is not brown, they offer brine fromthe sea and you give them curls …You whisper: They’re filling the world with me now,in your heart I’m a hollow way still!You say: Lay the leafage of years beside you - it’s timeyou came closer and kissed me!The leafage of years is brown, your hair is not brown. "
― Paul Celan , Nineteen Poems
2 " The Years from You to Me"Your hair waves once more when I weep. With the blue of your eyesyou lay the table of love; a bed between summer and autumn.We drink what somebody brewed neither I nor you nor a third:we lap up some empty and last thing.We watch ourselves in the deep sea’s mirror and faster pass food to the other:the night is the night, it begins with the morning,beside you it lays me down. "