Tenebrae

[Tiarnán Ó Corráin]

     Tenebrae
     --------
     
     We are near, Lord,
     near and at hand.
     
     Handled already, Lord,
     clawed and clawing as though
     the body of each of us were
     your body, Lord.
     
     Pray, Lord,
     pray to us,
     we are near.
     
     Askew we went there,
     went there to bend
     down to the trough, to the crater.
     
     To be watered we went there, Lord.
     
     It was blood, it was
     what you shed, Lord.
     
     It gleamed.
     
     It cast your image into our eyes, Lord.
     Our eyes and our mouths are so open and empty, Lord.
     We have drunk, Lord.
     The blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord.
     
     Pray, Lord.
     We are near.
     
         - Paul Celan, 1959 (trans. Michael Hamburger)
	
-- 
Tiarnán Ó Corráin       <ocorrain at esatclear.ie/ocorrain at yahoo.com> 
Alliance: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
separately plunder a third.
				-- Ambrose Bierce