In German, it’s ichten, which doesn’t look any more natural than the English but shows that we’re dealing with a verb in the past tense, constructed from ich, the first-person-singular pronoun-something like “they became I’s,” that is, selves. I felt “him,” that presence, whoever he might be, “unseen” and yet “real.” The poem features one of Celan’s signature neologisms. It was as if the poem opened up and I entered into it. In a dream state or trance, I read the lines over and over, instilling them permanently in my memory. Once, I heard him, he was washing the world, unseen, nightlong, real.
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