SEASONS

young honey

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

young honey

I.

the light lengthens
between blossom
and snow and
blossom

i taste hope
like young honey
drop by
drop

i want to drink
my fill
from the white wine
of your voice

i want to eat
my fill
from the fruit-bread
of your presence

II.

no spring day
bubbling over
fills the cup
of my heart

no full moon
flooding silver
cools the fire
of my hands

a face needs
the shiny mirror
of a face
in the night

i wait for
the morning
i wait more
than the watchman

Christina Egan ©2021

yolk-yellow

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

yolk-yellow

at the turn of the year
at the turn of the sun
I was alive
I was aware

I wandered alone
along the hawthorn hedges
I meandered long
along the galloping brooks

I watched the clouds passing
in the puddle on the path
I caught the kestrel circling
in the corner of my eye

I glimpsed the goldfish
nudging the crust of ice
and the yolk-yellow crocus
breaking out of the earth

I held the pinecone
in the hollow of my hand
I held the goldcrest
in the hollow of my heart

Christina Egan ©2024

Tiny bundle of yellow crocusses between massive tree roots, with sparse grass around.

Written in January, when we have only just passed winter solstice, but in the south of England, the first daffodils famously open.

I remembered the goldfish under the ice when I saw the long yellow flowers of the crocuses coming up.

Photograph: Christina Egan ©2017.

First Yellow Day

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

First Yellow Day

softly
tread softly
on the skin
of the earth

it is stretching
in a warming waterfall
in the royal rays
of the newborn sun

it is pushing
slender green bodies
and fragile fair heads
out of dark sleep

it is breathing
slowly for you
so breathe
breathe slowly

newborn is the grass
newborn is the year
weightless is the day
weightless is your heart

faded stacked shapes
are filling with colour
like care-worn faces
are smoothed and flushed

and smiles are rising
like yellow balloons
effortless guileless
into boundless blue

Christina Egan ©2019

Abstract painting of bright squares and rectangles in blue, green, orange, and yellow tones.
Paul Klee: Polyphony (1932). Kunstmuseum Basel.

Written on a warm and sunny day in late February. Climate change is palpable, but sometimes it is pleasant…

Magical Chimes

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Magical Chimes

A silver box with coral lid,
the wintry summer palace glows
atop the steep and even hill.

The pleasure ponds are frozen still;
a thousand windows in neat rows
blink one by one and drink their fill.

A haze hangs in the copse of firs
and birdsong floats, a silver web…
Among the shades, a buzzard stirs.

The clockface on the tower shows
ten in the morning; then it throws
its golden chimes into the wind

like golden coins! The treasure rolls
across the grounds, down to the walls,
across the fields, down to the mill,

where in the yard, a cockerel crows –
as if the land were now awake,
as if today the ice might break.

Christina Egan ©2017

This poem was inspired by walks through the grounds of 18th century palace Schloss Fasanerie, (Eichenzell near Fulda, Germany), which are freely accessible to the public.

One of my best German poems, Aprilabend (Der Tag ist hoch), describes the view across the highlands from there.

You will find another clock tower at Himmelblaue Uhr (Tottenham)  and May Haiku (Bruce Castle); the latter post is in English.

Promise / Verheißung

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment


Promise (January Tanka)

Beach of coal-black sand,
turquoise lagoon, pink sunrise:
all this in one sky.
Layers of cloud, air, and fire
above the cold waiting earth.

*

Under the full moon
the denuded twigs rejoice
– look! – studded with buds.
Beneath the skin of the trees
– listen! – the sap is brewing.

Christina Egan ©2022



Verheißung (Januar-Tanka)

Schwarz, türkis, rosa:
Strand, See und Sonnenaufgang
im selben Himmel.
Wolken, Luft, Feuer über
kalter wartender Erde.

*

Entblößtes Gezweig
jubelt unterm Vollmond – schau! –
mit Knospen besetzt.
Unter der Haut der Bäume
– lausche nur! – brauen die Säfte.

Christina Egan ©2022

The colourful landscape was a mirage in the sky, or a promise, over the dull lands of winter. There are indeed deep-black beaches, on the Azores or the Canaruy Islands for instance, and they might be warm even in January…

unter der weide

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

unter der weide

I.

als das rundzelt
der weide
sich sachte
bauschte

als der pilgerzug
der pappeln
silbern
rauschte

als das erdreich
im abendrot
lag und
lauschte

als die stille
sprach
brach
mein herz

brach auf
wie eine kokosnuß
voll süßer milch
und weißem mark

II.

wer kostet
meine worte
wer liest
meine blicke

wer wartet
auf mich
unter der weide
im windhauch

wer wartet
mit mir
auf den neuen mond
auf den ersten stern

als wäre das morgen
noch möglich
als wäre das leben
noch herrlich

mein blick fing
die sternschnuppe
wer liest uns
ihre botschaft

III.

heu bedeckt
die krume
schweiß bedeckt
die haut

blumen
leuchten
nicht himmelblau
blauer als himmel

blumen
brennen
nicht feuerrot
röter als feuer

die trauerweide birgt
ein stummes gebet
meine arme wiegen
einen neuen traum

auf der stirne
trage ich
einen kuß
wie ein juwel

Christina Egan ©2021

Tree Haiku (Bloomsbury)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Tree Haiku
(Bloomsbury)

*

All silvery silk,
its ball-gown is billowing:
the Monterey pine.

*

A tall shady cave
filled with invisible song:
a group of old yews.

*

Those great wars do not
touch it, nor those great poems:
the ancient gingko.

*

Christina Egan ©2022

*


Only gingko-trees survived
the atomic bomb at Hiroshima;
Goethe wrote a much-quoted
poem about a gingko-leaf.

The “invisible song” was
perhaps of the goldcrest,
which I spotted with delight
at the same site another time.

*

Gingko biloba. Photograph by CS76, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Reife Feige

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Reife Feige

Aufs Pflaster klatscht die Feige,
verlockend süß und groß.
Mein Herz ringt, daß es schweige
und weint und lacht doch bloß.

Es trübt sich und es regnet
und leuchtet wieder neu…
Mir ist das Glück begegnet,
es ging heut früh vorbei.

Es ging mit festen Schritten
und grüßte mich, als ob
auf ungesagte Bitten
es käme her von Gott.

Ich hebe jene Feige
aus ihrem Schattengrund
und koste ihre Reife
mit überraschtem Mund.

Sie will mich trösten, nähren,
unsagbar, unverhofft.
Das Glück wird wiederkehren:
Ich lausche, ob es klopft.

Christina Egan ©2021

Overcast (I took the bus)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Overcast

I did not read the book
I took
I did not cast a glance
not once
I took the bus and dreamt
no end
I wrote some verse of love
and stuff
I dreamt that in the street
we’d meet
and summer would return
and burn
and that would be the date
from fate:
the sun and you and me
all three

Christina Egan ©2023

There is evidently a lot of waiting for sunshine in northern latitudes, as in Warten ist der Winter and Hinter dem Olivenbaum …

This playful verse from a London double-decker bus was actually written in mid-August, when it should be bright and hot everywhere; yet the weather has always been unpredictable and is now turning seriously unstable. In this poem, the summer is not returning after the period of winter but after a long, dull, cool break between early and late heatwaves.

Vigil (Du bist die Hand / Your Distant Hand)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Vigil (V)

Du bist die Hand, die mein Gebetbuch hält
in aller Frühe, wenn die laute Welt
noch schlummert wie ein müdgetobtes Kind
und wir die Stimme ihrer Träume sind.
Wir sind der Psalm, der aus der Erde steigt,
wenn Nachtwind noch die Wiesenblumen neigt,
das erste Wechsellied im Weizenfeld…
Du bist die Hand, die mein Gebetbuch hält.

Christina Egan ©1990

Huge liturgical book with very large writing and music, richly illuminated

Vigil (V)

At dawn, the noisy and unruly world,
just like a tired child, has not yet stirred.
We are the voice of all its dreams: we stand,
my hymnal lifted by your distant hand.
We are the psalm arising from the earth
while night wind is still bending blooming herbs.
We are the chant across the ripening land…
My hymnal lifted by your distant hand.

Christina Egan ©2018

These lines describe the early-morning prayer of Christian monks and nuns: standing up and bowing, chanting and responding to each other… They also imagine an invisible connection between two of them — good friends perhaps, close relatives, or former lovers — who feel that they are praying together across the distance between them.

Photograph: By ignis – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.