With Every Thought

By Paul Celan

With every Thought I went

out of the World: there you were,

you my Gentle One, you my Open One, and –

you received us.

Who

says that for us everything died,

that for us there the Eye broke?

Everything woke, all things began.

Vast, a Sun came swimming by, bright

a Soul and a Soul engaged, clear,

masterfully made a silence for it

a path ahead.

Lightly

you opened your Lap, quiet

rose a Breath in the Aether,

and what became cloud, was it not,

was it not Form, and for us then,

was it not

as good as a Name?