Breathturn into Timestead Quotes

“Threadsuns
above the grayblack wastes.
A tree-
high thought
grasps the light-tone: there are
still songs to sing beyond
mankind.”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry

“Poetry: that can mean an Atemwende, a breathturn. Who knows, perhaps poetry travels this route—also the route of art—for the sake of such a breathturn? Perhaps it will succeed, as the strange, I mean the abyss and the Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automatons, seem to lie in one direction—perhaps it will succeed here to differentiate between strange and strange, perhaps it is exactly here that the Medusa’s head shrinks, perhaps it is exactly here that the automatons break down—for this single short moment? Perhaps here, with the I—with the estranged I set free here and in this manner—perhaps here a further Other is set free? Perhaps the poem is itself because of this … and can now, in this art-less, art-free manner, walk its other routes, thus also the routes of art—time and again? Perhaps.”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry

“Once,
I did hear him,
he did wash the world,
unseen, nightlong,
real.

One and unending,
annihilated,
I'ed.

Light was. Salvation”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry

“What threw
us together,
scare-scatters,

a worldstone, sun-distant,
hums.”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry

“All
orbits are free.

Several earths
I lob to you while going blind—
the two
white ones you keep, one
in each hand.”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry

“Once,
I did hear him,
he did wash the world,
unseen, nightlong,
real.

One and unending,
annihilated,
I'ed.

Light was. Salvation”
― Paul Celan, Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry