So many constellations

So many constellations that
are held out to us. I was,
when I looked at you - when? -
outside by
the other worlds.

O these ways, galactic.
O this hour, that weighed
nights over for us into
the burden of our names. It is,
I know, not true
that we lived, there moved,
blindly, no more than a breath between
there and not-there, and at times
our eyes whirred comet-like
toward things extinguished, in chasms,
and where they had burnt out,
splendid with teats, stood Time
on which already grew up
and down and away all that
is or was or will be -,

I know.
I know and you know, we knew,
we did not knew, we
were there, after all, and not there
and at times when
only the void stood between us we got
all the way to each other.



by Paul Celan