theparisreview:

Homecoming

Snowfall, thicker and thicker,
dovecolored, like yesterday,
snowfall, as if you had been asleep just now.

Into the distance, the stacked-up whiteness
and beyond, endless,
the sleightrace of the lost.

Below, hidden,
pushing itself upward,
what hurts the eyes so much,
mound after mound,
invisible.

On each mound,
brought home to its today,
sucked down into its muteness: an I,
a wooden post.

There: a feeling—
blown across by the icewind,
it fastens its dove-, its snow-
colored cloth bannerwise.

—Paul Celan.
Translated from the German by Robert Pinsky. Photography Credit Jennifer Juniper Stratford.