Tree Haiku (Bloomsbury)

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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

My City Calls (Visual poetry)

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10 years of this blog!

AD MULTOS ANNOS

Poem "My City Calls" typed up in the shape of a city, including a Gothic Cathedral. In the sky, chimes, smoke, snow or rain, typed in special characters.
Inscription "C.C.A.A.", very clear, on old broken stone monument.

Celebrating ten years of this blog with two new versions of one of the first poems published here: “My City Calls” typed up as a cityscape around a Gothic Cathedral and as a church bell.

The additional letters at the end might be the notes of the bells – but they are also a clue to the identity of the city!

Poem "My City Calls" typed up in the shape of a church bell, with some ornaments of special characters.

You can click on the visual poems to read the text more clearly
and go to the plain text via the link above.

Visual poems My City Calls (Cityscape) and My City Calls (Church Bell). Christina Egan ©2024. Developed from the text My City Calls (1995/2012).

The Bricklayers

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The Bricklayers


I.

We are the bricklayers:
we lay the next layer of bricks
in colours of coal and cream
and mustard and rust,
and the next and the next,
where it fits, where it clicks,
bricks upon bricks upon bricks.

We are the people
who have made the big city.

We have walked here over the hills,
we have sailed here and settled,
we have woven the brittle wattle
and cast the wayward clay into bricks
and levelled the luminous limestone
for thousands of years. Our stories
still run underneath the pavement,
in the veins of the hidden rivers.

II.

We are the bricks:
We come in in all sizes, in all shades
of beige and brown and black,
the walls next to each other
and often the bricks, mixed,
a mosaic, haphazard and rough,
like the bark of a London plane-tree.

We are the people
who make up the big city.

We have moulded and sawed,
we have woven and sown,
we have carried and ferried
and bartered on the market.
We have brought up and taught,
we have cared for and cured,
invented, imagined,
and immortalised.

Christina Egan ©2023

Mitte des Lebens / alles ist möglich

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Mitte des Lebens

Das Leben hatte Überfluß versprochen
und sog dich an, ein buntes Labyrinth;
schon mittendrin hat es sein Wort gebrochen,
und deine Klagen stürzen in den Wind.
Was auch von heute an geschehen möge,
mag unerwartet sein und wunderbar,
du magst’s als Lust erfahren oder Segen,–
doch ist es nicht, was dir verheißen war.

Garden furniture jumbled up by storm in front of old wooden shed.
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2012.

Die Zeit flieht schneller, immer schneller hin,
und desto mehr, je weniger verbleibt…
Die Hoffnung, die doch unerschöpflich schien,
verkehrt sich langsam doch in Bitterkeit:
Denn zuviel Tun und Trachten war vergebens
– auch jenes, das vernünftig war und rein –
und wird es bleiben, trotz geballten Strebens,
und war vergebens schon von vornherein.

Christina Egan ©2013

Tiny weeds coming out of cracks, with their shadows.
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2020.

alles ist möglich

nicht alles ist glücklich
nicht alles ist richtig
doch alles ist wirklich
und alles ist wichtig
 
nicht alles ist füglich
nicht alles ist fertig
doch alles ist möglich
und schon gegenwärtig

Christina Egan ©2011

Two philosophical poem with few images.

The first one surveys someone’s life, with joys and blessings and surprises still ahead, but with prospects already limited and some hopes crushed.

The second poem breathes awareness, acceptance, confidence: “Everything is important… Everything is possible”! Is it about life in the moment?

Reife Feige

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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)

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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.

O Land of Ice and Fire

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O Land von Eis und Feuer

O Land von Eis und Feuer,
von Salz und Sturm und Schlacken,
wo in der Schwärze Schleier
aus bunter Seide flattern!

O Land von heißen Felsen
und unverhofften Wiesen,
wo Elemente schmelzen
und rauschend weiterfließen!

O Land am Rand der Meere,
am Rand von Raum und Zeit –
O ungeheure Leere
und Himmelsherrlichkeit!

Christina Egan ©2022

O Land of Ice and fire

O land of ice and fire,
of salt and storm and slag,
where in the black a layer
of light hangs like a flag!

O land of seething sands
and sudden dazzling green,
where melting elements
merge in a roaring stream!

O land beyond the seas,
where space and time disperse –
O awesome emptiness
and force of higher worlds!

Christina Egan ©2022

The Keystone of the Sky

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The Keystone of the Sky

When you see the sea-gull rising
From the glowing sand and sea
Through the narrow iron railings
Of your room and balcony

When you see the sea-gull soaring
From the far end of the quay
At the far end of the island:
Know that you will soon be free

When you see the sea-gull floating
Like the keystone of the sky
Like the king of land and ocean:
Know that you will rise as high

You will cross the glassy water
On a warm auspicious wind
You will sparkle like the crescent
Risen from the ocean’s rim

When you see the sea-gull rising
From the glowing sand and sea
Let your heart be lifted with it:
Know that you will soon be free

Christina Egan  ©2013

>>> Waiting to be set to music!

Past Poppies / Zimtsterne

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In the Past, there were Poppies

In the past, there were poppies
amidst the cornfields,
and coconut chocolates,
and stars in the sky.

Starships, too, shooting
through tunnels in time –
we would doubtlessly board them
on the boundless quest.

Christina Egan ©2022

Nach Zimtsternen duftete die Welt

Nach Zimtsternen duftete die Welt
oder nach Zwetschgenkuchen und Kakao.
Jeder Morgen war ein Malkasten,
und jegliches Wetter machte Spaß.

Mit dem Strandkorb segelte man übers Meer
und mit dem Stockbett sogar unterm Meer.
Und übermorgen wäre man wirklich dort,
auf Madagaskar oder auf der Alm.

Christina Egan ©2024

The German poem was written as a pendant to the English poem. For children, there is no need for confidence or hope: their belief in the future is so firm that it feels like knowledge. There is no doubt you will be an explorer or an inventor or an artist, or a mother or father, or anything else…

The poppies and the stars are not just images for the happiness of childhood: there were flowers in the crop fields before pesticides eradicated them, and there were more stars visible until pollution veiled them. ‘Cinnamon stars’ are typical Christmas biscuits and cake covered with fresh plums a typical summer treat.

I suppose the ideas for travelling over land, over sea, under the sea, and in outer space stem from the timeless masterpiece Heidi, the unsurpassable television series Star Trek, the science-fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and the documentary novel for children, Monika fährt nach Madagaskar.

 

In the Cool of the Evening

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In the Cool of the Evening

In the cool of the evening, silver-lit,
when the tide of noise has receded at last,
God walks along the coal-black beach
to listen out for the whispering waves,
to listen out for prayers and sighs,
to look for golden gems in the sand,
to look for purity in the hearts.

Christina Egan © 2016

Necklace of matt black and translucent green beads.

These lines were inspired by the pristine deep-black beaches of Lanzarote, where you can find lava and, in some rare places, tiny shards of olivine.

The strange idea that God walks on earth in the evening to observe humans stems from the story of Adam and Eve, when they are still in paradise but have lost their purity of heart (Genesis 3,8).

Photograph: Christina Egan ©2017.