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)