Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?

Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.

The language with which I make my poems has nothing to do with one spoken here, or anywhere.

I went with my very being toward language.

Poetry is a sort of homecoming.

Don't sign your name between worlds, surmount the manifold of meanings, trust the tearstain, learn to live.