O Little Root of a Dream

Translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov


O little root of a dream

you hold me here

undermined by blood,

no longer visible to anyone,

property of death.



Curve a face

that there may be speech, of earth,

of ardor, of

things with eyes, even

here, where you read me blind,



even

here,

where you

refute me,

to the letter.


~ Paul Celan