The Pattern of a Yesterday
(Knossos, Crete)

the colossal columns
of the proud pine-trees
that lofty canopy offering shelter
from the flood of sun

the black and white and blood-red pillars
in the serene maze of the palace
those patches in the pattern of a yesterday
which is millennia past

Christina Egan © 2012

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The same mural in the palace
at Knossos, Crete. Photograph:
Harrieta171 via Wikimedia.

For German poems about Crete,
go to the cycle Kretische Küste.
For more about Crete, see below!

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Golden Dell
(Chania, Crete)

You sip your coffee in the market-square
lapped by a sky and sea which both are blue;
you notice other folk from everywhere
and read this was the Roman forum, too.

You pass a corner with a golden dell:
stairs down and down, a hundred ages’ span…
The layers blur, solidify and swell,
and history unfolds, a dazzling fan.

Christina Egan © 2015

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The Minoan civilisation is the oldest urban civilisation in Europe. The royal palace at Knossos, dating back almost 3,500 years, has the first stone street of Europe. Chania on Crete, a city of stone even 5,000 years ago, is one of the oldest continously inhabited European settlements. You look back on 100 and more generations…

My German translation of the first poem is called gesternmuster.