Sudden Summer / Happiness Beyond

Sudden Summer
(Not a Word Cloud)

Is this moon new or young,
a sliver or a crescent, silver
or golden in the deep blue,
the newly deep sky, is it
striking or dazzling or
mesmerising?

Is this a late spring, belated
and all the more welcome,
bursting with life, with green,
bright green, saturated
with rain and sunshine,
saturated with colour and
heat, heat unfamiliar and
all the more welcome, or is it
sudden summer?

Is this life at last, is this joy,
is this joy of life, is it zest,
is it just new life-force or is it
happiness or elation or
bliss?

Reality, as it laps up against
the shores of your eyes and 
your ears and your nose, reality
as it washes over the leas
of your skin and seeps
beneath, cannot be captured in
words, not even in verse: reality,
so dense it feels like a dream,
is not a dream cloud nor a
word cloud.

Although this poem would make
a good one, with the message of
sudden summer sounding out
like birdcall, flooded with light
and colour, steeped in joy,
as if words were written from life
and for life, as if words were part
of life, of the wide earth and
the deep sky and the reality
beyond, of the ever-flowing
life-force.

Christina Egan ©2024

Happiness Beyond
(Word Cloud)

Your life is a green reality,
it reads in large green letters,
and newly young;
the sky is golden at last,
it states in fine golden letters,
and saturated with joy;
eyes and ears are bursting
with wide bright light,
it adds in silvery white;
and at the edge there is
happiness beyond colour
on deep-blue ground.

These are welcome words,
sudden and possibly deep,
a mesmerising message
from slivers of verse in your ears,
from the new dream poem,
from the word cloud
of Sudden summer:
Your life is a green reality
saturated with joy
under the newly young moon.

Christina Egan ©2024

Inspired by the word cloud of the poem Sudden summer and written on the same day.

Brief Encounter (II/III)

Brief Encounter (II/III)

Christina Egan ©2024

Poem about a red fish in dark water in the shape of a fish, in red print on dark background.

Visual poetry: Brief Encounter (I).
Text and design: Christina Egan ©2024.

Early July (The vast transparent vessel)

Early July

I.

The vast transparent vessel of the sky
is filled at last with light up to the rim.
The twigs and leaves and petals wave and cry:
“The feast of heat and harvest can begin!”

II.

The days are still long, the sky is still light
and already strong the glorious heat,
the grass is still lush, the flowers still bright
and already ripe the sweet golden wheat!

Christina Egan © 2015


Those magical weeks just after summer
solstice are also captured in the German
poems Erster Juli / Eimerrand.

Sonett der drei Seen

Sonett der drei Seen
(São Miguel, Azoren)

Der Teich war gelb, und gelbe Dämpfe stiegen
ins heiße Blau, umringt von dunklen Ranken,
als müde Glieder sich im Gelb entspannten
mit Blättern, die wie Schlick im Strudel trieben.
Der See war grün, und grüne Schimmer hingen
in steilen Hängen und in flachen Tiefen,
worunter ungeheure Feuer schliefen,–
zur rechten grün und himmelblau zur linken.
Und um die gelben, grünen, blauen Kessel
und buntbestickten Ufer lief ein Band
von schwarzen Felsen und von schwarzem Sand;
und darum – ohne Grenze, ohne Fessel
und ohne Form – das Meer, das Element…
O selig, wer die sanften Inseln kennt!

Christina Egan © 2016

Sete_cidades_(14267780070)

 

Sete Cidades, (São Miguel, Azores). Photograph by Aires Almeida from Portimão, Portugal, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The colours of the water are really like in the photo! See also my verse Acherons Mund  for the darker aspects of these isles.

These poems may work in a translation software, although you only get the meaning, not the sounds, which are like music and like the sounds of nature itself!

Rosen wie Splitter

Rosen wie Splitter
(Juli-Haiku)

*

Rosen wie Splitter
von Mittagsglut, Mondnacht
und Sonnenuntergang.

*

Warm und schwer von Düften
schwappt die Luft durch den Park,
lacht lautlos der Teich.

*

Goldene Blüten,
tausend Trompeten, hörbar
nur für die Engel.

*

Christina Egan © 2001

Two large orange roses in the sunshine, yellow in the middle, with large healthy leaves.

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014

Kretische Küste

Kretische Küste

I.

Vor mir ein grünes Meer, ein roter Strand
und hinter mir die himmelhohe Wand
der Weißen Berge, mit Gesträuch schraffiert,
mit Schluchten aufgeteilt, vom Mond berührt.

Es schwindelt mich, so schroff ist es und schön…
ich möchte mitten ins Gebirge gehn,
als sei es eines Mannes Wohlgestalt
und berge sein Gemüt in jedem Spalt.

II.

Der kupferfarbne Sand wird doch zu Gold,
wo er in steiler Woge niederrollt
und sich mit jenem Brennendblau benetzt,
das kommt und nochmals kommt… und jetzt… und jetzt.

Und Disteln starren in dem dürren Strand,
die plötzlich strahlen wie von Zauberhand,
wenn erster Regen flüchtig niedersteigt
und Brautkleidblüten aus den Blättern treibt!

III.

Wo täglich Himmel sich mit Meer vermählt
und Landes Rand von anderm Strand erzählt,
wo trockne Erde wie der Tagstern loht
von silbriggold bis zu orangerot,

wo noch bei Nacht das Wasser, kaum bewegt,
den Leib in schwerelosem Zauber trägt,
bis in das sanfte Schwarz ein Schweifstern stürzt –
dort laß uns warten auf den milden Herbst.

IV.

Mit riesenhaften grünen Pranken greift
das Meer hinein in den geschützten Kreis
des kleinen Hafens, daß die Mole schäumt
und sich die bunte Schar der Boote bäumt.

Des späten Herbstes erstes Fauchen fährt
in letzte schwere Hitze wie ein Schwert.
Fünftausend Jahre aber ragt die Stadt
ins Element, gelassen, sonnensatt.

Christina Egan © 2014

Flourishes on a mural, turquoise on luminous red and yello

For more poetry and information
on Knossos 
and Chania on Crete
see my English poems
The Pattern of a Yesterday and
Golden Dell.

 

Frieze in the royal palace at Knossos, Crete.
Photograph: Harrieta171 via Wikimedia.

Gingerbread Man

Gingerbread Man

God made you of some gingerbread
which over time intensifies:
so that with every year, your breath
will taste of hotter, sweeter spice!

Christina Egan © 2014

We Married on the Ferris-Wheel

Vienna quivered in the heat
for our furtive feast:
we married on the ferris-wheel
(we kissed on it, at least).

The palaces shone yellow-white
like lemon cakes with glaze:
we married in the royal grounds
(we kissed within a maze).

That summer rolled into a ball
and down the hill of time –
Vienna basks in splendour still,
my bridegroom still is mine!

Christina Egan © 2014

String of Pearls

Your presence makes this globe that whirls
the best of all existing worlds —
your kisses make this blob a pearl
from which a string of worlds unfurls!

Christina Egan © 2015

Asteroid

He inhabits his own tiny planet,
a fragment of rock, you might say;
his orbit seems steep and erratic
and often immensely away.

Yet, what you can’t see from your garret
nor find in your smart telescopes:
it’s two of them snug on that comet
that’s studded with roses and oaks.

Christina Egan © 2010