The Forest on Fire
The forest on fire, filling the screen,
catches your eye, the living torches
of the towering pines, the sore soles
of the koalas, the bent skeletons
of the verandas. You notice at last
the whale on your doorstep,
led astray, stranded, gasping, or
the regal white bird, its wide wings
spread out on your beach, already
choked on your civilisation. Where
is the lark? Half your precious planet
is about to be razed. Face it.
When you rush out now to fight
the fire, the flood, and the festering waste,
do you not know it is too late
for you, yourself? The biting fumes
are invisibly running in the rivers
of your blood, the glittering garbage
is secretly heaped in the caves
of your bones, the drugs and counter-drugs
skip around in your brain. Doomed
you confess to be? You are due,
overdue. Half your precious life
has already been cancelled. It’s gone.
Christina Egan ©2021
birds
Coal Tits / Leaf Surf
Coal Tits
Coal tits are weaving through the leaves,
leaves tinged with gold and tinged with rust;
the earth, relieved of darkness, breathes
before the leaves will turn to dust.
Coal tits are chirping in the leaves,
wings tinged with fire, tinged with ashes;
their song is weaving with the breeze
through our windows’ rigid meshes…
Christina Egan © 2017
Leaf Surf
The lawn lies like an emerald bay,
like golden sand the fallen leaves.
The wind is waltzing on the roofs,
the wind is leaping through the streets,
it rolls into the shimmering heaps,
it stirs them up, it whirls them up,
it sweeps a wilful whispering surf
onto the sun-bathed autumn turf!
The earth takes one last joyful breath
before the shade falls like a spell.
That there is so much death in life
and so much dancing life in death…
Christina Egan © 2017
Photograph by makamuki0 (Marc Pascual).
Rear Mirror
Rear Mirror
Telegraph wires:
a flock of birds turns them into
three lines of verse.
*
No flowerbeds here –
but a line of bright washing
dancing in the wind!
*
A palm-tree appears
in the rear mirror, and huts
in the still lagoon.
Christina Egan © 2018
These haiku about haiku were written looking at three picture postcards, where I instantly perceived patterns and metaphors.
Poetry – and painting or photography – are like rear mirrors which make hidden things visible and ordinary places special.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016.
ich sammle das goldblatt / Scant Scent
ich sammle das goldblatt
ich sammle das goldblatt vom himmel
wer hat es gemalt?
den lapislazulischimmer
wer hat ihn bezahlt?
ich sammle den pfeil jener elster
ein schrei und ein flug
ich schneide das bild aus dem fenster
der glanz sei genug
ich fange den wind in den zweigen
bevor er verweht
ich schreibe mit purpur das schweigen
das späte gebet
Christina Egan © 2017
Sunset over the Bay
of Carthage, Tunisia,
around New Year’s Eve.
Photograph:
Christina Egan © 2013
Scant Scent
The incense of my prayer
turned damp in this dark place,
where layer upon layer
of cloud obscures the grace
of light and breath and warmth,
of ease and joy and strength —
O Lord of Hosts, accept
my incense with scant scent…
Christina Egan © 2017
Sunface
Sunface
I smile at the sunface
and soak up the rain
I gather a garland
and wait for the grain
I forage the forest
and furrow the earth
I gaze at the sunset
and wait for the bird
I follow the swallow
its call and its course
it cries and it circles
it sinks and it soars
Christina Egan © 2016
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.
This was the tree the bird sang from so sweetly… It has since been felled, so that my garden gets much more light and thrives; so the tree behind it, the bird’s new home!
April Rules the Land
April Rules the Land
(April haiku)
April rules the land,
leaden and golden in turns,
wayward as we are.
*
Oxford Street, busy,
a splintered rainbow, patterns,
shaken and broken.
*
The white narcissus
sings with a voice as sweet as
her brother blackbird.
Christina Egan © 2000
—
The last haiku originally referred to ‘the ivory rose’, although in England, outdoor roses do not blossom yet in April. When I changed the wording to ‘the white narcissus’ to link it to the season and month, I did not know that the flower’s official name is Narcissus poeticus, or Poet’s Narcissus!
The ivory rose
sings with a voice as sweet as
her brother blackbird.
Proteus / Daedalus
Proteus
Your beauty is the beauty of the clouds:
as grand and graceful, as remote,
from silver changing into gold,
and changing shape, and changing whereabouts.
Your beauty is the one of Proteus:
I’m bound to watch it swirl and stay,
afraid your heart will likewise sway,
innocuous and gay and treacherous.
Your beauty is the one of Morpheus:
I’m bound to drink it in a dream,
afraid of stumbling on that stream,
with ghostly flowers studded, murderous.
Your beauty is the beauty of the clouds.
your ever-present smile the gleam
behind their soft and tousled seam…
Your soul is what your face reveals and shrouds.
Christina Egan © 2012
—
Daedalus
I watch the condor pass:
lofty and lonely,
steady and strong,
improbable like Daedalus…
I watch the condor pass
and want to follow him
across the barren peaks –
I want to touch the clouds…
Christina Egan © 2012
Ashen Land (For Syria)
Ashen Land
(For Syria)
The only offspring left calls from the eaves.
Some houses have a hundred hollow wounds,
and hamlets of a dozen centuries
surrender to contending winds their rooms.
The olive-trees stretch out their silver leaves
like angels’ feathers in a cry for peace.
Where is the comfort for a bird that grieves,
the peace for ashen land? Is it beneath?
It is beneath the nettles and the shards,
beneath the venom seeped into the field;
it is above the silver heaps of stars,
a seed of unimaginable yield.
Christina Egan © 2016
Photograph: ‘Olivenbäume in Umbrien’ by Adrian Michael.
I found this marvellous illustration on Wikimedia Commons long after I wrote the poem. I had not even thought of the silver bark and leaves resembling ashes…
In the past few years, millions of Syrians have lost their homes and possessions, or their jobs or studies, or their health or their limbs, or their loved ones or their own lives. The national liberation movement has turned into an apparently bottomless civil war, a literally insane religious war, and a vicarious war of outside powers. This conflict will change the face of the Near East and the face of Europe. Meanwhile, the suffering continues.
Let us pray for peace in Syria. All together.
höhlenmenschen / cavemen
höhlenmenschen
die treppe rollt
hinab hinab
die u-bahn grollt
fährt ein fährt ab
der tunnel biegt sich
durch die nacht
der aufzug hebt sich
aus dem schacht
die masse schiebt sich
durch die schlucht
ein wabern webt sich
in die luft
ein sonnenstrahl
blitzt auf vom glas
ein vogelschwarm
stiebt auf vom gras
der rest ist schatten
stahl und stein
dies ist die stadt
tritt ein tritt ein
Christina Egan © 2015
—
cavemen
the staircase bores
into the ground
the tube train roars
goes round and round
the tunnel bends
through rock through black
the lift ascends
the narrow gap
the masses heave
through deep ravines
fumes waft and weave
through all these streams
a glint of sun
reflects off glass
a pigeon swarm
explodes from grass
the rest is shadow
steel and stone
this is the city
welcome home
Christina Egan © 2015
—
This poem — created in parallel in both languages — questions the notion of progress by observing its epitome, the world city, with its underground tunnels and dark gorges between skyscapers.
You can read more laments about the strain of our urban environment in the previous post, Amidst the rush / Schrumpft die Welt, and find some relief in When Webs of Steel / Von stählernen Waben.
Epithalamium (A Hundred Snowflakes)
Epithalamium
A hundred snowflakes melting in your hair,
and every one a different ornament;
a hundred swallows weaving in the air,
each on its own encrypted message bent;
a thousand roses, beauty pure and bare,
each goblet filled with subtly varied scent;
a thousand leaves consumed in festive flare,
each spelling out its special testament…
So how much more are you – a human face –
unheard-of and unequalled in your blend?
I chose you from a thousand for your grace,
fulfilling and surpassing what I dreamt.
So by your side I take today my place,
while unnamed blessings blossom and descend.
Christina Egan © 2014
—
An epithalamium is a wedding song; a Continental sonnet
has 8 + 6 lines. Here, the first eight lines present images
from the four seasons; the last six lines state that humans are
more complex and individual than any natural phenomenon.
Some German poems on the uniqueness of each person can be
found at Einer von Millionen and Hieroglyphe.
Christina Egan 