Prag, golden

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Prag, golden

Im Meerblau des Abends,
im Windschutz der Burg
ersteigen die steilen
sandfarbnen Stufen
zwei Schatten und flüstern
und lachen und schweigen.

Schleier, besetzt
mit zahllosen Perlen,
die Büsche im Regen;
Kelche, geblasen
aus purpurnem Glas,
die berstenden Blüten.

Landschaft von Türmen,
spiegelnde Schluchten –
Bilder in Winkeln
des unruhigen Herzens,
Erinnerung an Träume,
an Heimat der Zukunft.

Reigen von Brücken,
behütet von Engeln,
von Helden der Vorzeit.
Türmende Treppen,
hängende Gärten,
Stadt ohne Alter.

Christina Egan © 2004

 My impression may work quite well in a translation software.

If you have the opportunity to visit one city only in Europe north of the Alps, let it be Prague. It is Central Europe in a nutshell. And it is enchanted…

The Czech Republic is a lovely little country anyway, with countless hills and lakes, mediaeval castles and market squares — absurdly romantic!

By the way, two other excellent destinations in Europe, other than Mediterranean, are Tallinn (Estonia) and Bruges (Belgium).

The Tea Turned Cold – III

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Please note the third part of an essay at POLITICS .

The Tea Turned Cold in the Cup,

or, Why Women’s Work is No Work

III.

The notion that women are paid less although they work as much and as hard is erroneous: women are paid less although they work more and harder than men. In fact, women are paid less because they work more than men.

If you take into account that women spend much of their time and energy on domestic chores, it stands to reason that they have less space left for their education, training, development, paid and unpaid work, and are less likely to be promoted.

You wonder why someone devotes an essay to something as humble as cleaning toilets or filling washing-machines, and why this should be a political issue. Well, it is a question of principle but also a question of scale.

If you work out that a woman’s additional labour – by comparison to the life partner or other male peers – may well amount to 1,000 hours per year, you reach the figure of 10,000 hours rather soon across a lifetime. This is supposedly sufficient to become a veritable expert or great artist; and this is cut out of women’s lives, with no one noticing a hole as big as the Bermuda Triangle.

Read more here.

 

Line of washing outdoors, very colourful, above greenery and flower-pot.Photograph: Christina Egan © 2013.

Kirchenkonzert / Church Concert

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

 

Joint 100th English and 100th German post!

Colourful ancient glass window, prophet in red hat, red shoes, green cloak.

 

Kirchenkonzert

Ein Dom mit hohen grauen Fensterscheiben
und berstend bunten um den Pfeilerreigen –
und alles, alles aus Musik!
Und unerreichbar fern, unsterblich stark
du stille dunkelblaue Gegenwart,
du mein Geheimnis, mein Geschick.

Christina Egan © 2008

 

 

Large astronomical clock with two blue and golden dials in wooden frame.Church Concert

A dance of pillars round the sacred site;
round them, tall windows, grey or burning bright –
and all is made of music, melody!
Unreachable, immortal and immense,
a tranquil deep-blue presence grows more dense:
it’s you, my secret, you, my destiny.

Christina Egan © 2017

Find more poems about the power of music at Quest / Suche  and Auf dem Purpurteppich / On the royal-purple rug.

 

There are fewer than 200 posts of poetry here, since some show parallel or similar poems in two languages (and some are in French), but almost 300 poems.

 

Prophet Hosea, window in Augsburg Cathedral, around 1100 (!). Photograph:  Hans Bernhard (Schnobby) (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons. — Astronomical clock with carillon playing hymns (20th c.). Marienkirche, Lübeck, Germany. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.

La Mer, enfin

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La Mer, enfin
(Cimetière marin, Sète)

Ô vagues de vers sincères et idolâtres…
Ce vaste pan de verre d’un vert bleuâtre
Entre cieux et ombres suspendu,
Et cet essaim neigeux de tombes en marbre
Parmi les flammes géantes noires des arbres :
La Mer, enfin. J’ai vu et j’ai vécu.

Ces fleurs en bas, comme lèvres entrouvertes,
Impérissables certes, mais inertes,
Moulues de cet argile du Midi ;
Ces fleurs en haut, rosées et scintillantes,
Ces tressaillantes et minces, mais vivantes !
Le Cimetière. J’ai vu et j’ai écrit.

Christina Egan © 2016

Light-blue sky and light-green ocean in the background, white tombs in the foregrund; in the front, a flat marble slabs decorated with two large pink flowers, one in clay and one in plastic.

 

Paul Valéry’s tomb on the Cimetière marin, which has become famous through his poem. It is shown and played all day in the neighbouring art museum erected as a homage to him.

These lines are closely related to Valéry’s. The durable but lifeless flowers are of clay and plastic; the perishable but living ones blossom on the bushes around. My picture and poem were created in early January!

An automatic translation into English may convey the meaning of  my French homage to Valéry quite well — but not the music of the words!

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016

um mitternacht (der letzte bus)

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um mitternacht

um mitternacht
der letzte bus
die straße strömt
ein dunkler fluß

die häuser schlafen
wand an wand
die bäume ruhn
im brautgewand

um mitternacht
der letzte kuß
die kurze kerze
loht mit lust

der mond hängt schräg
ein heller mund
die stille quillt
aus sattem grund

Christina Egan © 2015

This night scene is so peaceful that everything seems animate
and comfortable: the road is streaming, the houses are sleeping,
the trees are slumbering, dressed in blossom like brides.

Yet the person observing this is restless: seeing bright lips in the slanting
moon crescent, burning up like a candle, and knowing that life is
as short as a candle…

The German word ‘Lust’ could mean ‘lust’, ‘desire’, ‘zest’ or ‘pleasure’!

Spell of the Orange-Tree

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Spell of the Orange-Tree

The orange-tree is growing,
the orange fruits are showing
and glowing in the dark.
The moon’s translucent fire
is woven into wire
by spiders on the bark.

Oranges hanging from branches against blue sky

The silver light is flowing,
the silver web is growing
and glowing in the dark.
The secret saps are welling,
the golden spheres are swelling
to fortify the heart.

Christina Egan © 2016

Photograph: Morocco. Christina Egan © 2012

Toys / Baskets / Bowls

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Toys

I
scanned
the
scattered shapes
heaped around me and picked out
the flowers and fresh fruits and fleeting clouds filled
with sun and added some slanted squares of marble and slate and
trunks of birch-trees and fashioned my finds into this
spinning-top. Just don’t ask what
it means. It’s a toy
I made for
you !

***

Baskets

The most delicately plaited words
still awkward, thick like things.
Bent over pads of paper,
the poet labours, late,
dexterous, impotent
to convey music,
silence…
peace.

Christina Egan © 2012

Roman_bowl_01_MusLon

Bowls

Like bowls of ordinary wood,
robust, adept, like workers’ tools,
these hands seem empty. Yet they are
filled to the brim, invisibly:
with jewel-like ideas the one,
the other with tranquillity.

Christina Egan © 2012

Roman bowl. Photograph from the
website of the Museum of London.

restloslächeln

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

restloslächeln

von dem blütengesicht
wendest du dich ab
vor der glockenstimme
läufst du davon

denn du willst dich nicht
wundsehnen
nie mehr willst du dich
krankfragen

es ist dir zu teuer das
restloslächeln
zu gefährlich ist dir das
endlosküssen

und dein eignes blütengesicht
versteckst du sorgfältig
samt deiner glockenstimme
in deinem kopfkissen.

Christina Egan © 2012

Observations of the fear of love, the fear of falling in love, the flight from a person you would love to love…

In German, you can more easily invent new words which will be written in one word: here, it is ‘making yourself sore with longing’, ‘making yourself ill with asking’, ‘smiling without leftover’, and ‘kissing without end’. Occasionally, German is more concise than English!

The Tea Turned Cold – II

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Please note the second part of an essay at POLITICS:

The Tea Turned Cold in the Cup,

or, Why Women’s Work is No Work

II.

When a woman cooks a nourishing meal from scratch for her family and afterwards wipes the table and counters, scrubs the sink, rinses and washes all the crockery and cutlery, all the spoons and utensils, and the casserole or baking-tray, will she say: “Well, washing up is as much work again as cooking”?

No, she will say: “I do it by hand. It’s only four plates.” And she will say it with a shrug of her shoulders and a throwaway tone.

Read more here.

Two round cakes from above, with cherries in patterns.

Home-made millet and cherry cakes. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.

Motionless Fire

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Motionless Fire
(May Tanka)

Small azalea bush with lurid pink blossom, amongst lush feathery nigella leaves.

 

A motionless fire,
the azalea unfolds, flares,
and slowly burns out.
From the mud it wrestles force,
colour, and returns to mud.

*

 

Small azalea bush with brownish wilted blossom, amongst lush green nigella with feathery leaves and blue flowers.

Pink snowflakes drifting?
Forgotten miracle of
the cherry blossom!
Every spring, the petals sail
into death so serenely…

 

Christina Egan © 2016

 

Photographs: Pink azalea.
Christina Egan © 2016/2017.