Die Welt ist still

Die Welt ist still

Ich sitze unter einem Baum
im Blätterzelt, im Schattenkreis;
die Welt ist still und bunt und heiß,
hoch oben wölbt sich weißer Flaum…
Ein Sommertraum.

Der stolze Pomp war Schall und Schaum,
die rasche Mode Funkenflug,
das Tretradtreten war Betrug!
Ich sitze unter einem Baum,
man glaubt es kaum.

Das Bildgewebe war ein Zaun,
ein Katzengold der ganze Schatz,
ein Karussell die ganze Hatz –
Die Ruhe schafft dem Atem Raum:
Frag’ nur den Baum.

Christina Egan © 2020

For English poems from the Covid-19 lockdown,
see Notnormal and the parallel texts Hidden Rivers /
Verborgne Flüsse
.

For those who were not ill with the terrible virus, 
the key experience may have been, paradoxically:
I can breathe… For once,
there was time to breathe —
and air to breathe!

Pluck the Day / This Silvery Sound

Pluck the Day

Large flat flower in white and purple, with long purple stem, small orange fruit, shiny green leaves.Save time! Save time!
Spend time! Sell time!
Pile time, file time!
Fill time, kill time!

Live time…
leave time…
give time…
weave time.

Close-up of poppy flower with dew or rain on it, above other red, orange, purple, and white flowers.Pluck the hour,
pluck the day,
golden-green or
silver-grey.

Pluck time…
peel time…
suck time…
feel time.

Christina Egan © 2009


This Silvery Sound

This silvery, surging, curling sound:
the whispering leaves
of the urban trees…
O listen, O listen and look around:
the silvery greens
like a dream of the seas…
And fading away as soon as found.

Christina Egan © 2018

Photographs: Christina Egan © 2016.

On Crossing the City

On Crossing the City

Sometimes you want to get out of your life
as if off a draughty and noisy bus
and wander along the pavement for miles
round corners, expecting a revelation.

People in books get off on occasion
to escape a track of modest despair,
but you cannot remember where they end up,
presumably just on another bus.

Sometimes you wonder if you caught the right bus
or at the right time, or the right way round,
and if this hectic clockwork of movements
is determined by destiny or by dice.

Christina Egan © 2011

Amongst high, dark, buildings, lawns, trees in blossom, and in the middle, a red doubledecker bus.

 

For a German poem about the quest for meaning and happiness amidst the apparent confusion of a big, busy, city, see my previous post Zugewogen.

 

Photograph: London bus. Christina Egan © 2016