Secret Flute
The cups stand empty, steady, calm.
The candle glows: a secret flute.
The rose releases dazzling balm.
The things are silent: but not mute.
Christina Egan © 2013
Flötenton
Die Tassen stehen leer und ganz gelassen.
Die Kerzenflamme ist ein Flötenton.
Die Rose schüttet Süße aus in Massen.
Die Dinge schweigen; doch sie sind nicht stumm.
Christina Egan © 2013
The usefulness of a pot lies in its emptiness.
Lao-tse
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2009
Riders of the Whales
I turn my face towards you
the riders of the waves
the riders of the whales
not as masters
but as friends
I lay the shimmering isles
into your unknown hands
I lift my smile
like a bright-blue flag
to one who wields the wand
and strikes the rock
to turn the wasteland
velvety and fragrant
once again
I lift my cup
of bittersweet brew
to one who turns the wheel
and shifts the clouds
to make the frosty stream
a sparkling wall
once again
I sweep the ashes
and lay the bricks
I feed the seeds for you
I grow the words for you
I beg your forgiveness
and scatter blessings on you
the yet unborn
Christina Egan ©2021
The Lake and the Rain
The lake is a mirror
of willow and reed,
a sheet of opaque
and buckled glass
whose bulges break
the billowing leaves
and swaying stalks,
so that the strokes
of umbra and ochre,
of olive and lime
form ever new patterns…
And then the drizzle
adds ripple on ripple,
painting an intricate
pulsing design
of circles and squares,
flashing and fleeting,
never repeating…
never depleted…
never completed…
It all has a meaning,
It all, maybe, matters.
Christina Egan ©2022
Summer Rain (II)
The summer clouds, the summer sun
are dazzling on the little lake,
the summer wind, the summer rain
are writing on its shiny slate.
You need not know the ancient script,
you need not know the ancient tongue:
the message echoes in your chest,
the summer rain, the summer sun.
Christina Egan ©2023
The first poem resembles a Cubist painting of overlapping and breaking shapes in sombre earthy colours: nature viewed as an abstract painting, or rather, a composition in permanent motion.
The second poem reads the rain on the lake as a secret message, perhaps like the ancient declarations on the Rosetta Stone… We may not be able to decipher or understand the message sufficiently, but it is there!
Everything reflects everything else… and perhaps the whole world reflects a higher world. All this beauty and meaning can be found in the smallest slice of nature, in the pond down the road.
Pulling the Curtain Aside
I.
Am I a character
in a glaring maze,
in a hectic loop
of dreams, of dreams?
Or am I a person
in her skin, her pyjamas,
in her room, on a road
rolling out, rolling out?
II.
Am I a character
in a lengthy play,
crowded, confusing,
with repetitive lines?
Am I abandoned
to alien tongues,
am I exclaiming
into the winds?
Christina Egan ©2024/©2022
No title. René Halkett (1938).
Image with kind permission of
Galerie Klaus Spermann.
In my very vivid, restless, repetitive dreams in my sleep, I often feel like a spectator who gets periodically drawn into the action and cannot escape. I added this experience to the one of feeling like an actor or character on stage rather than a person who decides upon her actions and communications.
Who Watches the Dusk?
Who watches the tendrils grow and uncurl?
Who watches the rose-buds glow and unfurl?
Who watches the robin flash in the drizzle?
Who watches the robin splash in the puddle?
Flap – and hop – and look – and be gone?
Who watches the drizzle slowly subside?
Who watches the clouds be blown and turn bright?
Who watches the rainbow glimmer and blink?
Who watches the rainbow shimmer and shrink?
Flash – and stretch – and fade – and be gone?
Who watches the dusk?
Who talks to the birds?
Who gropes for the spring?
Who smells the wet earth?
Who frees up the time?
Who fills out the space?
Who walks with the wind?
Who offers his face?
Who watches the dusk?
Who talks to the birds?
Who gropes for the spring?
Who smells the wet earth?
Who frees up the time?
Who fills out the space?
Who walks with the wind?
Who offers her face?
Christina Egan ©2018
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
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
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
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
Written on a warm and sunny day in late February. Climate change is palpable, but sometimes it is pleasant…
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 (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…
Christina Egan 