The Forest on Fire
The forest on fire, filling the screen,
catches your eye, the living torches
of the towering pines, the sore soles
of the koalas, the bent skeletons
of the verandas. You notice at last
the whale on your doorstep,
led astray, stranded, gasping, or
the regal white bird, its wide wings
spread out on your beach, already
choked on your civilisation. Where
is the lark? Half your precious planet
is about to be razed. Face it.
When you rush out now to fight
the fire, the flood, and the festering waste,
do you not know it is too late
for you, yourself? The biting fumes
are invisibly running in the rivers
of your blood, the glittering garbage
is secretly heaped in the caves
of your bones, the drugs and counter-drugs
skip around in your brain. Doomed
you confess to be? You are due,
overdue. Half your precious life
has already been cancelled. It’s gone.
Christina Egan ©2021
ELEMENTS
Vision (In den Augen den Mittag)
Vision
In den Augen den Mittag,
den Mittelmeermittag –
In den Haaren die Nacht,
braunsamtene Nacht –
In den Augen die Sonne,
im Wellenspiel glitzernd –
In den Haaren den Wind,
wildseidenen Wind –
Christina Egan © 2014
A luminous winter day on a Mediterranean island… or rather, the beginning of a lush spring as early as February. – Photograph: Christina Egan © 2018.
Gegenwart (Wie Kalksteinhügel)
Gegenwart
Wie Kalksteinhügel liegen deine Wangen
und deine Haare wie ein Pinienwald.
Schon zittert meine Seele vor Verlangen
nach deiner bloß erratenen Gestalt.
Ein dunkler Doppelsee sind deine Augen,
noch beinah unberührt und unergründlich.
Ob sie auch meine Zukunft in sich bergen,
ist beinah ungedacht und unerfindlich.
Und wie das warme Meer rollt deine Stimme,
wenn sich orangerot der Tagstern neigt…
O schautest du nur auf und hieltest inne –
und würdest niemals bloß Vergangenheit!
Christina Egan © 2014
Description of a new acquaintance in terms of a Mediterranean landscape.
The title plays on the double meaning of the German word “presence” / “present”: the speaker is mesmerised by the other person and already has a faint hope that he or she will become the future… and never slide back into the past.
Sunset on a Mediterranean shore in January. – Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.
Der Himmel reißt auf
Der Himmel reißt auf
Zierliche Zweige, schwarz
gegen den Honighimmel,
Pfirsichhimmel,
Flammenhimmel,
die einzelnen winzigen Blätter
klare Keilschriftzeichen
auf irdenen Tafeln,
leicht in der Hand
und schwer von Geheimnis.
Der Himmel reißt auf,
gezacktes Gewölk steigt,
spreizt sich, schwenkt Geärm,
rosa Riesenkoralle
vor blaßblauer Südsee,
zuckt auf, fällt zusammen,
zieht fort, violett verwelkt,
aschene Spur im Äther.
Welch verschwenderischer Glanz…
Christina Egan © 2017
Green Lagoon / Crater Lakes
Green Lagoon
(Lanzarote)
Down the cauldron of the mountains,
on an island like a moon,
down the sooty, rusty hollows,
you will find the green lagoon
where your destiny is brewing,
where new dreams are bubbling up,
where the sky is pure and glowing,
where the earth is fresh and hot!
Christina Egan © 2015
Crater Lakes
Afar, I’ve seen the keen and tranquil green
of crater lakes, like mirrors of my dream…
And now I turn to look into your eyes
and find the same mysterious silver gleam
and realise my dream’s materialised.
Love happens, blossoms, thrives – and never dies.
Christina Egan © 2011
Please also note my poems about the green crater lakes at Kaali, Estonia (Der Erde Auge) and at Sete Cidades, Azores (Sonett der drei Seen).
Green Lagoon, El Golfo, Lanzarote. Photograph: Justraveling.
Quintessence
Quintessence
I’ll fill a crystal flask
with silver melodies,
a magic drop to last
for years and centuries.
I shall distil my days
to mellow poetry,
and distant lands will taste
the quintessence of me.
I’ll fill a crystal flask
with pearls of memory:
my solitary task,
my faithful alchemy.
The five pure elements’
fifth essence, finally,
their forces and their scents:
as fresh as fiery!
Christina Egan © 2016
Photograph: Glass flask by Eugenes, found in Syria,
3rd c. AD. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
I had similar flasks from the Roman era in mind
when I wrote the poem but did not know this one.
Wetterfahne / Weather-Vane
Wetterfahne
Jemand muß die Wolken jagen…
Jemand muß die Bäume fragen:
Seid ihr glücklich? Seid ihr satt?
Jemand muß den Regen ahnen,
eher als die Wetterfahnen,
eher als das Espenblatt.
Jemand muß die Sonne sichten,
Frost und Feuer in den Lüften
und den ungeheuren Sturm.
Jemand muß die Schwalben fragen:
Wird die Erde uns noch tragen?
Wetterfahne auf dem Turm!
Christina Egan © 2018
Weather-Vane
The weather-vane is turning,
the sinking sun is burning
and burnishing its gold.
The slender birch is swaying,
its golden veil is fraying…
The year is getting old.
The weather-vane is creaking,
the cold and damp are seeping
into the window-frames.
The golden flag is flashing,
the elements are splashing
their vigour into space!
Christina Egan © 2018
These two poems about weather-vanes were written on the same November day, but are not versions of the same text.
The first one alludes to a sensitive and at the same time sensible person, who keenly feels changes in weather and climate — and asks how long we shall be able to live on this earth.
The second one describes sunset and autumn as images of ageing — and at the same time celebrating life!
Gut Hasselburg, Holstein, Germany; Bruce Castle, Tottenham, England. Photographs: Christina Egan © 2014/© 2017.
Daedalus on the Battlements
Daedalus on the Battlements
You drag your baggage through the crowd,
and from the loud and glaring maze
you spill into the heavy haze
of autumn fog and stifling fumes,
into a tube you crawl through tubes,
into a bullet aimed at space –
You soar, you blink, anticipate
some mellow light, some subtle blues –
And then you float above the dunes
of salty sand, the plains of ice,
the shadow of a sheet of cloud –
You sail above the blazing skies!
Christina Egan © 2016
Another return to Greece with winter sunshine even before I arrived: a sunset above the clouds! — Daedalus escaped the labyrinth by flying from its walls; the flaming sun plays a key role in this myth.
You may get the sense of this poem quite well in a translation software.
Rosenquarzkammern
Rosenquarzkammern
Silberblech, angehaucht
Von allen Winden, schiefergrau
Und goldgekräuselt, rollt aus
Sich die See, bis sie
Des anderen Landes Füße berührt,
Die Türme der Stadt gegenüber.
Durch Rosenquarzkammern
Schimmert der sinkende Tagstern,
Reißt gleißend das Tor auf.
Den weißen Schiffen aber
Gleich menschentragenden Möwen
Folget das Auge hinaus,
Folget das Herz hinüber
Und wünschet sich Brücken,
Aus silbernen Fäden gesponnen,
Geknüpft über Wogen und Wald…
Christina Egan © 2017
This is the view onto the Öresund bridge which connects two countries, Denmark and Sweden, although it turns into a tunnel in the midst of the water, so that it seems to go under… The style of the poem is that of two hundred years ago, when such long bridges could not yet be constructed; the speaker only wishes for roads across, instead of the sea itself as a path.
I tried to convey the expansion of the elements and the symphony of grey, white, silver, golden, pink.
You can read English poems about a suspension bridges at On the Orange Bridge (San Francisco) and Tranquil Dragon (London).
Photograph of raw rose quarz by Ra’ike [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Cascades of Light
Cascades of Light
Cascades of light,
of mild, corn-coloured fire:
the sun pours itself out, down,
down across the black gulf
of space and time,
a flame, a smile,
onto the open rose,
the waiting face of the earth.
Christina Egan © 2004
Psalm
As warming as the sun’s first touch
after an age of ice.
The last love tastes like the first one:
radical, innocent.
No need to confirm with fire,
no need to confirm with words.
The world suspended in your eyes –
then life rolling out like a yellow-green valley.
Christina Egan © 2004
Photographs: Roses on the small island of Föhr, meadows on the tiny island of Hooge, both in the North Sea. Christina Egan © 2014.
Christina Egan 