AT NIGHT, when the pendulum of love swings

between Always and Never, 

your word accosts the moons of the heart

and your tempest-blue

eye hands heaven to the earth.

 

From afar, from a dream-blackened

grove the exhaled wafts about us,

and what's been neglected roams, large as future's outlines.

 

What now sinks and rises

is meant for what lies buried deep down:

blind like the gaze we exchange,

it kisses time on the mouth.

 

 

                                    Paul Celan