Paul Celan's Ashes

Here is the hand in its shade of absolute
and the study of grapes with bruises.

If the river took the body,
how did it burn?

Here are constellations stained in the books,
the sentence hidden from the truth,

executions painted on the sun
as if what is here must be understood.

If black hands reach for the sun,
how do ashes mask the face of history?

Here is the measure of the body, the rain
that drips on what has been done—

a greater telling vague with tongues.
If stepping into the void is a cut flower,

how does war leave survivors?
Here is the healing hand on the throat,

the good heart and its water spilled
when things are finally understood.

If the poem takes the soul,
how does sound embrace it?

If this is silence,
how does the bird bend the tree?

Copyright © 2009 Ray Gonzalez All rights reserved
from The Bitter Oleander
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission