The Lake and the Rain

The Lake and the Rain

The lake is a mirror
of willow and reed,
a sheet of opaque
and buckled glass
whose bulges break
the billowing leaves
and swaying stalks,
so that the strokes
of umbra and ochre,
of olive and lime
form ever new patterns…

And then the drizzle
adds ripple on ripple,
painting an intricate
pulsing design
of circles and squares,
flashing and fleeting,
never repeating…
never depleted…
never completed…
It all has a meaning,
It all, maybe, matters.

Christina Egan ©2022

Summer Rain (II)

The summer clouds, the summer sun
are dazzling on the little lake,
the summer wind, the summer rain
are writing on its shiny slate.

You need not know the ancient script,
you need not know the ancient tongue:
the message echoes in your chest,
the summer rain, the summer sun.

Christina Egan ©2023

The first poem resembles a Cubist painting of overlapping and breaking shapes in sombre earthy colours: nature viewed as an abstract painting, or rather, a composition in permanent motion.

The second poem reads the rain on the lake as a secret message, perhaps like the ancient declarations on the Rosetta Stone… We may not be able to decipher or understand the message sufficiently, but it is there!

Everything reflects everything else… and perhaps the whole world reflects a higher world. All this beauty and meaning can be found in the smallest slice of nature, in the pond down the road.

young honey

young honey

I.

the light lengthens
between blossom
and snow and
blossom

i taste hope
like young honey
drop by
drop

i want to drink
my fill
from the white wine
of your voice

i want to eat
my fill
from the fruit-bread
of your presence

II.

no spring day
bubbling over
fills the cup
of my heart

no full moon
flooding silver
cools the fire
of my hands

a face needs
the shiny mirror
of a face
in the night

i wait for
the morning
i wait more
than the watchman

Christina Egan ©2021

Kreuzung / Vollmondtraum

***


One poem has a person with dark hair and a person with fair hair falling in love at first sight. In German, the words for ‘junction’ and ‘to cross’ come from the same root: ‘Kreuzung’ and ‘kreuzen’.

The other poem describes a beautiful beloved man (or, by changing one word, a woman) with greying hair. The stars write the lover’s delight onto the sky, and the beloved one’s soul shines like a star.

Radiance (You did not see the star)

Green Lagoon / Crater Lakes

Green Lagoon
(Lanzarote)

Down the cauldron of the mountains,
on an island like a moon,
down the sooty, rusty hollows,
you will find the green lagoon

where your destiny is brewing,
where new dreams are bubbling up,
where the sky is pure and glowing,
where the earth is fresh and hot!

Christina Egan © 2015

Olive-green inlet amongst towering black and red rocks, entirely barren.

Crater Lakes

Afar, I’ve seen the keen and tranquil green
of crater lakes, like mirrors of my dream…
And now I turn to look into your eyes
and find the same mysterious silver gleam
and realise my dream’s materialised.
Love happens, blossoms, thrives – and never dies.

Christina Egan © 2011


Please also note my poems about the green crater lakes at Kaali, Estonia (Der Erde Auge) and at Sete Cidades, Azores (Sonett der drei Seen).

Green Lagoon, El Golfo, Lanzarote. Photograph: Justraveling.

Brown Butterfly / Brauner Schmetterling

Brown Butterfly

 

Found, found on sandy ground:
bronze brooch from an unknown age,
bright map of an unknown land,
O quivering flower,
brown butterfly!
Where have you flown…?
Little butterfly,
your mirroring wings
are dust lifted up from the earth
and assembled to beauty of heaven.
Grace, grace beyond a name.

Bright admiral butterfly, maroon with 'eyes', on purple cone of flowers.

 Brauner Schmetterling

 

Gefunden auf sandigem Grund:
Bronzebrosche verlorener Zeiten,
bunte Karte ferner Gefilde.
Du erbebende Blume,
du bräunliche!
Wo flogst du hin…?
Schmetterling,
deine Spiegelbildflügel
sind Staub, der Erde enthoben,
gesammelt zu Himmelsschimmer.
Anmut, namenlose Anmut.

Huge tropical flower, orange and wide open, with human hand for comparison.

The shape of the poems — and their
colour — emulate those of a  butterfly.

English poem: Christina Egan © 2005. 
German poem: Christina Egan © 2017.
Photographs: Christina Egan © 2013.

gesichter (fotografie / teetasse / verabredung)

gesichter

I.

fotografie

dein angesicht fängt wie ein schrein
den flammenglanz des himmels ein
und stellt ihn zart und zauberbunt
in meines herzens mittelpunkt…
ich bin allein und nicht allein.

II.

teetasse

ich schau in einem schwarzen teich
flüchtig und deutlich ein gesicht
vor einsamkeit und kummer bleich
wie ein gespenst bei mondenlicht…
ich bin es und ich bin es nicht.

III.

verabredung

zwei stimmen stimmen überein
und fremde züge spiegeln sich
zuweilen blütenblätterfein:
auf deines reimt sich mein gesicht!
du weißt es und du weißt es nicht.

Christina Egan © 2012


Two voices which echo each other, two faces which mirror each other, two people who rhyme… Everyone’s dream — and sometimes it comes true.

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

Washing-line with red, orange, yellow, green clothes, forming a triangle with the matching flower-beds behind.

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.

Der letzte Tropfen

Der letzte Tropfen

Wein von der Farbe des Blutes, jedoch vom Dufte der Rosen,
Wein von des Abends Kühle, darauf von der Hitze des Herdes…
Halb nur bewußte Gebete murmelnd, vergieß’ ich das Opfer:
Göttern den ersten Tropfen, den letzten dem fernen Geliebten.
Unbekannt sind mir jene, nicht weniger fremd ist mir dieser,
marmornes Bildnis verborgen im Haine heiliger Pinien.
Glatt wie silberne Spiegel und pfeilgerade die Straßen,
welche das mächtige Rom über Sümpfe und Hügel geknüpft hat:
Dennoch führt nicht eine zum Ziel, zum Dache des andern,–
ewig harrt man allein, allein unter schweigenden Sternen.

Christina Egan © 2015

Roman mosaic of bottle and cup

Like every year, I begin this blog with a Roman road

The poem is written in hexametres, which I find difficult to emulate in English and German.

You can find another story with spilt wine and ancient roads, in the form of an English poem, at Quo vadis?.

 

Roman mosaic, Bardo Museum, Tunis.
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2014.