RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

On Crossing the City

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

On Crossing the City

Sometimes you want to get out of your life
as if off a draughty and noisy bus
and wander along the pavement for miles
round corners, expecting a revelation.

People in books get off on occasion
to escape a track of modest despair,
but you cannot remember where they end up,
presumably just on another bus.

Sometimes you wonder if you caught the right bus
or at the right time, or the right way round,
and if this hectic clockwork of movements
is determined by destiny or by dice.

Christina Egan © 2011

Amongst high, dark, buildings, lawns, trees in blossom, and in the middle, a red doubledecker bus.

 

For a German poem about the quest for meaning and happiness amidst the apparent confusion of a big, busy, city, see my previous post Zugewogen.

 

Photograph: London bus. Christina Egan © 2016

Zugewogen

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

One year later:
My 125th post!

Zugewogen

Altar, bright golden, in church, Neo-Gothic, with plenty of lit candles beneath.In den Gezeiten des Lebens,
in dem Getriebe der Stadt
suchst du verzweifelt, vergebens
Liebe, die Zukunft hat.

Tritt ins Portal einer Kirche,
schau’ in die flackernde Flut,
entzünd’ eine winzige Kerze
und wisse: Alles wird gut.

Alles ist zugewogen,
Liebe und Freude und Leid;
niemand wird je betrogen
um Sinn und um Seligkeit.

Christina Egan © 2011

St Ludwig, Berlin (near Ku’damm).
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016

“Everything is weighed for you, love and joy and suffering; nobody will ever be cheated out of meaning and of bliss.”

I believe this beyond any doubt, although not everything will come all right this side of death. Lighting a candle in a place of worship in the midst of our busy lives gives us comfort and peace at any rate.

This poem on faith and destiny was published in a previous edition of the  Münsterschwarzacher Bildkalender. The 2017 calendar is available now, with 52 photographs and 52 poems and addresses (one of them by me: psalm für dich).

psalm für dich / The Charm

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

psalm für dich

ein schwebender lebender planet
ist dein auge
ein schimmernder sternennebel
dein haar

manche menschen drehen sich nach dir um
und auch manche engel
Gott hat dich erfunden
um sich zu erfreuen

Christina Egan © 2012

This poem has just been published in the Münsterschwarzacher Bildkalender 2017.

The person described may be someone the speaker is in love with or someone else, like a young child. Ultimately, it could be each one of us. I imagine that God feels as passionately about each human being as we feel only about very few others… and of course, still never as passionately.

The Charm

I want to rest my stormy eyes
in yours to find a moment’s calm;
I want to rest my wounded hands
in yours to find their strongest balm.

I need to lay my heart by yours,
which cast this fast and forceful charm,
I need to hear your heart tune in
to sing a brief and burning psalm.

Christina Egan © 2003

Mer de miel

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

 Clouds in hte sunset, looking like a bright yellow sea, an orange coast and purple sky. An optic illusion above a real coast (not visible here).

Mer de miel
(Sète)

Levez vos yeux vers ce vitrail doré,
d’un jaune plus doux, d’un jaune plus pâle possible :
une baie cernée de hauts rochers
d’un bleu brumeux… Un crépuscule paisible.

Clignez vos yeux à ce vitrail distant,
mer de miel, montagne mauve, sauvage :
tout flotte au dessus de l’horizon –
des eaux de feu, une terre de nuages !

Ce paysage d’un or incomparable
s’évanouit et passe, une image…
Ou serait ça la côte impérissable
et notre terre et mer le grand mirage ?

Christina Egan © 2016

This poem takes up an idea from ancient pagan and Christian philosophy: our world may be only a pale reflexion of a higher, perfect, world. Those ‘heavens’, however, are an inaccessible and unimaginable place — beyond our universe — for which the visible sky is only an image.

The fiery sunset which took me quite literally ‘out of this world’ occurred in midwinter on one of the northernmost beaches of the Mediterranean, at the outskirts of Sète. For a daytime poem and photograph on the sea around Sète, see La Mer, enfin.

Clouds in the sunset, looking like a bright yellow sea, an orange coast and purple sky. An optic illusion above a real coast (also visible here).

Photographs: The sky above the coast in Sète, France. Christina Egan © 2016

Im Inneren des Regenbogens

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Im Inneren des Regenbogens

Im Inneren des Regenbogens
im Schimmer der Glasfenster
im Wasserfall der Gnade
im Vorzimmer des Himmels

habe ich dich gesehen
habe ich dich gespürt
habe ich dich gehalten
habe ich dich erkannt

in einer leuchtenden Freude
in einer sprühenden Stille
in einem haltbaren Augenblick
in einem Haus aus Licht

Christina Egan © 2016

On the Inside of the Rainbow was written at Pentecost, my favourite religious holiday. It may be about an encounter with a beloved person or with God himself. 

The description ‘Haus aus Licht’ (‘house [made] of light’) also figures in the last line of the poem Auferstehung (Resurrection)  by Marie Luise Kaschnitz.

The English translation is available as Inside the Rainbow.

 

P.S.:

This poem inspired Francis Logan to the composition Inside the Rainbow (2018), which you can hear on SoundCloud. Francis’ piece is very tranquil and spiritual: let yourself be carried away for nine minutes of your life…

Francis also produced a video on YouTube, in which he combines his electronic music with stunning photographs of stained glass and some of my lines in English in a beautiful script.

Image: Still from Inside the Rainbow on YouTube. Music and video: Francis Logan © 2018.

ostermorgen

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

ostermorgen

der schwere aschenfarbne vorhang
aus wolken zerrissen und weggefegt
spätmärzhohe morgensonne
ergießt sich als murmelnde orgelfuge

etwas ist geschehen
etwas ist dennoch geschehen
etwas
ist

lösende
lockende
gegenständliche
gegenwart!

Christina Egan © 2013

—

This poem about Easter morning was published in a previous edition of the Rhönkalender. It does not work in translation machines because the language is unusual and innovative.

For Christians, the resurrection of Jesus is not a myth or symbol but a historical and cosmic event; and God is not a distant force but a living presence.

For more on the symbolism of Lent and Easter, see my previous post Fastenzeit / Lent.

Fastenzeit / Lent

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Fastenzeit

An bitterem schwarzen Brot
nagt mein Mund.

An bitterer schwarzer Erde
nagt mein Herz.

Grauer Wind
fegt die Fluren rein.

Alles fastet
der Farbenfülle entgegen.

Christina Egan © 1985

—

Lent

My foot sinks
into bitter black earth.

My heart gnaws
on bitter black bread.

Grey wind
sweeps the fields clean.

Everything fasts
towards the flood of flowers.

Christina Egan © 1999

—

The church year mirrors the natural seasons  and symbolises our life events: voluntary renunciation in Lent corresponds to the hardships of winter or to emotional deprivation.

I shall shortly post a poem about Easter at ostermorgen, where faith in God and resurrection is linked to the renewed sunshine of spring and to the experience of communion and fulfilment.

Crystal Rock

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Crystal Rock
(Béziers)

View from Gothic cathedral, almost vertical, onto structures forming a pattern

You follow a hidden winding staircase
and step down inside a crystal rock.

You have become very small and dark
or the space around you tall and light.

You stand on the ground of a tower of ice,
a polygon of translucent stone.

Is it a cavern? Is it a glacier?
No, it’s a chapel beneath a chapel!

Gothic cathedral in winter, dark grey against light blue

It is a cell in an ancient cluster:
a grey cathedral crouched on a rock.

Your soles touch a surface beneath the soil,
your eyes reach a tent of light like the sky.

This staircase does not lead to a nightmare:
it should be baptised a lightmare instead.

That era should not be known as Dark Ages:
it ought to be honoured as Ages of Light!

Christina Egan © 2016

Photographs: Christina Egan © 2016

These lines refer to the same ancient town of Béziers as the last post, Roof-Tile / Plateau. There, you can see more views from the roofs of the Cathedral.

 

A breath

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

A breath

A breath – to draw, no, to invite
the sky into your thirsty chest!
A splash of air – a spark of life –
a space of freedom, quiet, rest.
A sigh, a word, a simple rhyme –
a flash of meaning on your quest.

Christina Egan © 2016

Glass screen with patterns in black, white and gold, resembling surf and seagulls.

Un poème, de l’air, un peu de liberté,
un peu de sens dans la vie furieuse…

Jean-Marc Barrier

Ein Wort – ein Glanz, ein Flug, ein Feuer,
ein Flammenwurf, ein Sternenstrich –

Gottfried Benn

 

‘Rhizome’. Sculpture by
Laurence Bourgeois (Lô).

Nonnenkloster

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Nonnenkloster

Initial of mediaeval manuscript, filled with monks and nuns singing from such a missal on a lectern above them; in gold and bright red, blue and green

Schneegleich
steigt Schweigen
aus den steilen Wänden,
aus den gefalteten Händen,
den vornübergeneigten Schleiern.
Und doch ist alles ein Feiern,
als sei, wenn es schneit,
ein Staub von Gold
über die Gärten gestreut…

Zeit, Zeit
tickt hier laut
in den langen dunklen Uhren,
in den blankbefliesten Fluren,
weil die Ewigkeit
sie so beschwert
wie Wasser eine weiße Schüssel.
Und jeder geschmiedete Schlüssel,
der gegen ein Gitter klappert,
klingt
wie ein Versprechen,
das Gott nicht brechen will.

Sunlit walled flower garden with sturdy stone cross in corner

Es singt
am Rasenrand
der Schneeglöckchenchor,
ein besticktes Band.

Und jede ungeschmückte Wand
durchdringt
das goldne Schweigen
wie der Frühlingssonne sanfte Hand.

Christina Egan © 2006

—

I owe this overpowering experience of peaceful silence to the Carmelite monasteries of London (Most Holy Trinity) and Cologne (Maria vom Frieden), which are based on a philosophy of shared “silence and solitude”.

Photographs:
Liturgical book for Eastertide (1450s). Sailko via Wikimedia Commons. —
Nunnery garden, hidden in the midst of a big city. Christina Egan © 2014