frau (außen und innen)

April 15, 2020December 10, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

frau

außen und
innen
ganz
frau

lebe ich
rund
träume ich
dunkel und
bunt
denke ich
durchdringend

ruhe ich
in mir
rufe ich
mein du
runde ich mich
um mein kind

gebäre ich
mein gedicht
berge ich
mein gebet

auch mein gesicht
ist lehm und
licht
ist ebenbild

My early vision of my identity as a woman holds: centred around marriage and motherhood as well as thought and art, different from a man but absolutely equal — created from the same clay, not from a rib, and from the same spirit!

The central image is the round shape: this person is somehow round, gentle; she is rounded, balanced; bending herself around other things and other people in a natural impulse. Only her thoughts can be straight and piercing!

The End of Lent

April 5, 2020March 25, 2024 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Sext
(Midday prayer)

Amidst a day of darkness,
amidst a life of fight,
the pillars and the organ
build up a vault of light.

Somebody must be present
to hear the silent screams!
There’s help past understanding,
there’s hope beyond all dreams.

But where do you keep hiding?
O Lord, who has left whom?
Dispense a drop of mercy
on each of us this noon.

The End of Lent

There’s more to life behind the troubled scene,
more light than mighty, timeless words can mean:
there is a truth that never lies,
a truth that fills the earth
with fragrant breath.

There’s more than we can fathom and esteem,
or ask for, seek for, need, desire, dream:
there is a love that never dies,
a love that will give birth
in very death.

La table jaune

March 30, 2020February 28, 2019 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

La table jaune

La table jaune limpide,
couleur de tournesol,
m’invite dans l’oasis
au cœur des plaines arides,
parmi palmiers et roses
en fleur sans fin, sans pause :
il met l’esprit au vol
vers les sommets saphir,
vers le soleil couchant,
mais fort même au nadir…

La table tournesol
est un tapis volant !
Mais il me manque le mot
qui le transforme, le pose
carrément aux epaules
des vents comme un radeau…
Ô table jaune et rouge,
écoute-moi et bouge,
transporte-moi aux flots
de l’air vers l’horizon !

The yellow table in the oasis becomes a flying carpet: it lifts the mind up towards the high mountains. Yet, to lift the body up also, it requires a password, and we do not have it!

The rose garden is set in a country where the sun is strong even towards evening or in midwinter, and where roses are always in blossom in abundance: I found it in Morocco.

Children of the sun and moon

March 21, 2020July 5, 2019 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Children of the sun and moon

When we drift through ink-blue dusk
under the twigs of moon-white blossom,
under the crystal orbs of street-lamps,
under the shadeless signals of neon,

when we slide across concrete squares
and sail around sharp and rounded corners,
restless and vigorous, at home in the dark,
at home in the city, nocturnal birds,

we know deep down that we are still
children of the sun and moon:
the sun must rise in our eyes,
the moon must rise in our brain;

we must admit that we are still
children of the earth and sky:
the spring must rise in our bones,
the stars must rise in our veins.

Window Seat

March 15, 2020December 18, 2019 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Window Seat

You beat me to the window seat,
the secret poets’ nest;
you watched the broad and busy street,
a highway on your quest.

You beat me to the poets’ prize,
without a rhyme or form:
you saw the faces floating by
in the approaching storm,

you caught the litter and the leaves,
the puddles and the birds
and strung them as bizarre bright beads
on your vibrating verse.

The poem has its origin in a coffee bar in a busy high street in London. It was published in the Tottenham Community Press (print issue of December 2018).

Osterglockenlied

March 2, 2020November 29, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Osterglockenlied

Was soll ich jene jauchzenden Narzissen,
die sich in zartesten Zitronentönen
und vollem Apfelsinenleuchten dehnen,
die mehr als wir vom wahren Leben wissen,
mit meinen leisen Reimen nacherschaffen?
Um unauslöschlich nun sie zu entfachen:
in Flammen, die dem Blatt Papier entspringen
und Freude ringsherum zum Klingen bringen!

Curling Up

February 20, 2020November 28, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Curling Up

I’m curling up
against the cold
against the world

its random roar
its lazy contempt
its glacial loneliness

I’m curling up
with the sky in my mind
and the sun in my heart

around a seed
already unfurling
and then: uncurling

I am at Home in the Darkness

I am at home in the darkness.
At least, dreams shine more brightly here,
lanterns among phantoms,
gold grains in the drifting sand.

Only my dreams
are real,
are true.

II.

All those who wish to die
crave for life, life, lost
in this cavern of wandering shades,
crazed by the thirst for a garden.

Only those who wish to die
are aware,
are alive.

I assume that very, very often when someone feels they want to die or are about to die, they are simply physically unwell — or simply overtired — or simply literally in the dark. If this insight informed our science and our society, we could manage our lives so much better.

The date these three poems were written is significant: it was mid-February, which is when I (like everyone in the northern hemisphere) feels the dark and cold most bitterly, because halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox, the various reserves of our bodies are dangerously low. From late February on, things get better, and this is not a mental phenomenon (little flowers can, after all, not cure leaden fatigue) but a physical fact.

Abendstern (Kaum erspäh ich)

February 7, 2020November 28, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Abendstern

Kaum erspäh ich dich von fern
meinen klaren Abendstern

schlägt mein Herz schon
Purzelbäume
schlägt mein Geist schon
Wurzelträume

in die dunkelblaue Nacht
in die späte Sommerpracht

Dein Gesicht ist mein Gestirn
an dem schwarzen Himmelsschirm

niemand hört die
Purzelbäume
niemand sieht die
Wurzelträume

unter meinem festen Schritt
unter meinem ruhigen Blick

Niemand weiß von jenem Punkt
der mir funkelt der mir funkt

von den kühnen
Purzelbäumen
von den bunten
Wurzelträumen

niemand weiß was mich bewegt
wenn die Glocke zwölfmal schlägt

Die vierte Frucht

January 25, 2020November 28, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ 1 Comment

Die vierte Frucht

Vier Früchte blieben uns vom Paradiese
auf unsrer langen Wüstenwanderung,
auf daß durch sie die Kraft des Ursprungs fließe
in tausendfacher Anverwandelung:

Die Liebe lädt in saftigblauer Traube;
die Hoffnung duftet warm wie goldnes Brot;
in bittersüßem Grün neigt sich der Glaube;
die Freude aber lächelt sonnenrot.

Für Sr. Caterina von der Freude in Gott

The four fruits of paradise, an idea I was inspired to by the three Christian chief virtues — faith, hope, love — to which I added joy, another gift or virtue promoted by the same stern author, St Paul.

^“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice”.

Phil. 4,4

Love is envisaged as a blue or purple fruit, hope as a yellow one (or a loaf of bread), faith as a green fruit (possibly tasting bitter) and joy as a red or orange one… hopefully all sweet! The colours of the rainbow exist for our nourishment.

am kalten kamin / Winter Sunset

January 15, 2020November 28, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

am kalten kamin

die eingerahmten flammen
von süßer sonnenkraft
sinken in sich zusammen
in kalter mitternacht

das feuer das dich blendet
in wildem geisterglanz
hat sich zuletzt verschwendet
zu tode sich getanzt

eh noch der morgen graute
liegt ausgelaugt der herd
und über deinem haupte
hängt sichtbar nun das schwert

Winter Sunset

If only I could fly
across the icy sky
into the dying sun,
so all my tears,
my wants and fears
and wanderings would be none.

If only I could fall
into the fiery ball
and warm and melt away,
and then be shot,
a sparkling dot,
into a new-born day.

Image: No title. René Halkett (1938). Image with kind permission of Galerie Klaus Spermann.

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