Paul Celan

SHIBBOLETH

 

Together with my stones
grown big with weeping
behind the bars,

 

They dragged me out into
the middle of the market,
that place
where the flag unfurls to which
I swore no kind of allegiance.

 

Flute,
double flute of night:
remember the dark
twin redness
of Vienna and Madrid.

 

Set your flag at half-mast,
memory.
At half-mast
today and for ever.

 

Heart:
here too reveal what you are,
here, in the midst of the market.
Call the shibboleth, call it out
into your alien homeland:
Feburary. No pasaran.

 

Unicorn:
you know about the stones,
you know about the water,
come,
I shall lead you away
to the voices
of Estremadura.

 

(Shibboleth, Paul Celan, 1955, translation Michael Hamburger)