canyons

Grand Canyon Psalm

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment


Grand Canyon Psalm

I.

Nothing prepares you
for the heart of the world
lying open before you:
luminous layers
of rosy rock,
jagged and rounded,
leading down, down,
right into the earth.

In the silver silence
of night, you hear
how this heart beats:
it trembles and rumbles,
it nudges your bedstead,
unsettles your cottage,
reminds you of death
and life and the earth.

Undulating layers of pink and mauve rocks and peaks, with trees in the foreground.

II.

Nothing prepares you
for the ear of the world,
always wide open,
always upturned,
listening out
for the thud of the pine-cones,
the dance of the deer hooves,
the chant of the milky-way.

You have arrived
at the mouth of the world,
its voice of thunder,
its eloquent silence.
Here you stand, struck,
quiet at long last,
as tiny as an ant,
anointed like a king.

Christina Egan © 2018

 

A tiny fraction of the immense expanse of the Grand Canyon.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2008.

Ripples of People

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Ripples of People
(Spring Equinox)

*

Ripples of people,
uneven waves, sudden whirls,
fast currents of cars:
a wayward river within
a canyon of grand buildings.

*

These neat white windows,
row upon row, road after road,
a thousand eyes
trying to catch light, praying
to touch the feeble sunset.

*

Christina Egan © 2013

Busy junction in the dusk, with red and yellow lamps of cars and buses glaring.

These tanka were written in Knightsbridge, London,
in the last days of March — after equinox! —
when after months of dull and dark skies,
you may still be desperate for light and warmth.
For similar poems in German, see Alles drängt vorwärts.

Photograph: Deptford Broadway, London.
Michael Oakes © 2016

London, This Moment of May

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment
London, This Moment of May I. London, this moment of May. High stately building, lower part in deep shade, upper part brightly lit, with red double-decker bus passing.A Grand Canyon in grey, imperceptibly turning to purple, with an orange glow on its battlements – but teeming in all its cracks, with foam of blossom and bird-flight, with currents of people and cars. Not a city, but a county, a country, a proud world in itself, the planet in a valley, an open oblong fruit, rich with glistening seeds, in the giant hand of clay hollowed out by the Thames.

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016

II. It is not mine, this city: I borrowed it. I borrowed it for a home, for a while, I borrowed its language, for good. Or it borrowed me, it borrowed my eyes to mount this tall bus, it borrowed my mouth to sing this new song. I run through its veins of walls and windows, of trees and lanterns… A Grand Canyon in grey. Or it runs through my veins, a pale-purple stream, murmuring, glittering… London, this moment of May. Christina Egan © 2013
The title alludes to the famous line by Virginia Woolf: “… what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.” I happened to write my poem in May, on a red bus…
P.S.: A year later, the climate across Europe has slid further into resentment towards foreigners or strangers of any description, be they war refugees or your next-door neighbours. There is a lot of blind anger and fear of vague entities like ‘Europe’ or ‘Islam’. This is the road to racism and fascism. My essay about my identity as an immigrant to England stayed on the front page of trade union UNISON‘s website for weeks: I dream in English. I come from one country, live in another, and plan to move to a third; yet my main identity is European at any rate!
>>> These poems were published in the Haringey Community Press (circulation 15,000) in September 2022.