Celan's,
meeting with Heidegger:
by John Felstiner's account
an impasse or non-event,
like Daniel's meeting with the lions;

the walk
through the blossoming Black
Forest broken off—too wet;
the visit to the dark hut
(like a negative of Goethe's oak

unfelled
out of respect in the
otherwise clearcut meadows
of Buchenwald, as Resnais's
Night and Fog had disclosed—"they build

the camp,"
Celan had translated,
"they respect the oak"); Denker
and Dichter
pausing to drink
at the star-topped well—less well than sump;