A Lonely Star
A lonely star surveys the streets.
The dark is brownish, blurred by lamps.
The cold is damp and slowly creeps
through draughty windows, long-locked doors.
Bats flit about like ghostly hands.
A blinking helicopter roars;
the city stirs and sighs and sleeps.
The star looks down and frowns and stands.
Christina Egan © 2017
Decorative paper. Image provided
by British Library through Flickr.
The Purple Grape
The purple grape,
soaked with a whole summer,
bears more than sweetness in it:
secret sparks
which will burst on your tongue,
which will rise like fire
to your temples, your wrists.
The purple grape’s flesh,
crushed, filtered, fermented,
harbours a truth,
a dark and dense
and undiscovered truth,
a relentless ruler.
Find dreams flipping over
into life, find sun
running through your veins,
find the more
you were made for.
Christina Egan © 2006
Thirst
I.
I’m drawn to you by magnets,
I’m driven, drained with thirst –
yet later I’ll be grateful
that nothing happened first,
that I have always loved you
because you are yourself,
and not because you know me
or kissed me once in stealth.
II.
It is as if these vessels,
these smooth and sparkling words,
whose hollow space entices,
reflects, rejects and hurts,
got filled with blood-red spirit
of strong reality:
Desire. Joy. Surrender.
Embrace. Eternity.
Christina Egan © 2004
Orange and Turquoise
(Crete)
orange and amber
the southern soil
like fresh fruit
like lush flesh
turquoise and azure
the sun-steeped sea
like human eyes
like human souls
Christina Egan © 2012
orangerot und türkis
(Kreta)
orangerot
und ocker loht
die stille bucht
wie fleisch und frucht
türkis azur
der wellentanz
wie augenglanz
und aurenspur
Christina Egan © 2016
A reddish orange and a greenish blue are complementary colours and will therefore be more striking in combination.
In the Mediterranean, strong light and heat prevail even in late September.
I found this beach at the edge of the five-thousand-year-old town of Chania on Crete.
You can read more about the bright blue and green sea in Kretische Küste and about the reddish soil in The Dittany of Crete.
Murals in the royal palace at Knossos, Crete.
Watercolour of crocuses by Arthur J. Evans: Photograph provided by Digital Bodleian Library under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
Photograph of spirals: Harrieta171 via Wikimedia.
Decorative paper. Photograph provided by British Library through Flickr .
Three Weeds
(August Tanka)
I.
Tall weed in the crack,
its flowers like little suns,
its shadow of ink.
The proud weed and its shadow,
its echo: beauty enough.
II.
Cushion by the path,
tiny purple trefoil leaves
embroidered with stars.
The drought has tinted the green,
drawn up the blood of the earth.
III.
The dandelion
bursting from between the slabs,
yellow, pure yellow.
This brief bright blossom calls out,
clear like brass, like a tuba.
IV.
Three weeds I noticed
finely stitched onto the stone,
shreds of tapestry.
Three weeds I noticed today
and how many did I not?
Christina Egan © 2018
Observations from the great heat and drought of summer 2018. If only we took the time to see, to listen, to feel…
Unplanned addition to the garden. – Photographs: Christina Egan © 2020.
Warten auf den Frosch
Warme nasse Nacht:
Ich will sehn, wie der alte Frosch
in den Teich springt!
Hockt er da drüben, glänzend?
Ach, bloß ein Bündel Blätter…
Waiting for the Frog
In the warm wet night
I want to watch the old frog
leap into the pond!
Is he crouching there, shiny?
Oh, just a bundle of leaves…
Christina Egan © 2016
For another tanka about frogs in honour of Basho, see In Starless Night.
Frog pond. Note the tiny tadpole! Photographs: Christina Egan © 2014.
Purple Wine
I.
Deep purple and pure is this wine,
the midsummer’s fire condensed,
expanding inside me, immense:
your kiss – you are finally mine.
II.
There’s twenty-one words on the paper,
of wine and a night I forgot:
yet flowers and fruits bore my plot,
your kiss sparkles many years later…
Christina Egan © 2005 (I) / 2020 (II)
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.
Your face, lit up,
perhaps, by me,
eclipses morning star and moon –
one word from you,
or more, maybe,
would freeze the clock at burning noon.
Don’t stop your step,
don’t hold your breath,
don’t soothe yourself it is too soon:
this is the life
as strong as death
that you have craved for. Let it bloom.
Christina Egan © 2004
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.
In sternloser Nacht
In sternloser Nacht
ein Silberfleck auf dem Moos:
verirrtes Fröschlein…
In den Garten, ins Gedicht
und hinaus hüpfen Frösche!
In the starless night
a silver speck on the moss:
a little lost frog…
In and out of my garden,
of my poems, those frogs hop!
Christina Egan © 2017
For another tanka about frogs in honour of Basho, see Waiting for the Frog.
Frog pond. Note the tiny tadpole! Photographs: Christina Egan © 2014.
Christina Egan 