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.

Showers (Haiku)

Showers

*

Snow

A thousand snow-flakes,
sent from the moon to the lake
like little kisses.

*

Rain

The rain is dancing
on the skylight through the night.
We are wrapped in sleep.

*

*

Christina Egan ©2002

Raindrops on window, with pink flowers showing in the lens of each drop.
Raindrops on window, with flowers showing in each drop.
Photograph by Kumiko Shimizu on Unsplash.


Unterm Abendstern

Tall brick chimney with blackbird sitting on top.
Blackbird on English chimney.
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2018.

Radiance (You did not see the star)

Noch ist nicht aller Tage Abend

Two storks in a nest, standing very close together, surmounted by a triangular tree and a steep roof, in the dusk.
Photograph: Storks’ nest in Wyk on Föhr, Germany. Christina Egan ©2014.

rosengarten (I. tiefversteckt)

rosengarten

I. tiefversteckt

wieviele monde sind uns noch beschieden
die ungeahnten sonnenglanz vergießen
wieviele rosen werden uns noch sprießen
aus blut und duft als wäre leben lieben?
wieviele strände dürfen wir genießen
im wilden norden und im kargen süden
wo winde endlos sich mit wellen wiegen
wieviele sommer sind uns noch geblieben?
du bist der tiefversteckte rosengarten
den ich nach langem suchen langem warten
betrübt doch immer hoffnungsvoll betrat.
du bist der mond der gleich der sonne leuchtet
du bist die brandung die den sand befeuchtet
du bist die erde wie am ersten tag.

Christina Egan ©2023

This sonnet forms the basis of a cycle of 14 poems, whereby each line furnishes the first line of a new sonnet (Continental pattern). Watch this space for the rose garden project (ROSENGARTEN).

This cycle is not about gardens alone or about islands, although many far-flung places will be reflected in these lines: it is about finding love and happiness, going through life together, finding liveable spaces…

Word cloud in reddish and yellowish colours on green; in the middle, "how many" "rose gardens", and a question mark.

Word cloud of ten German sonnets (rosengarten I-X),
generated on the Simple Word Cloud Generator.
In the chance arrangement, words picked out
by size and colour form the sentence:
“how many rose gardens where we,
(O) you, may yet live?”

P.S.:
You can now view a word cloud of all 14 sonnets at WordItOut
and have it printed on a mousemat or mug or fridge magnet!

Sonnwendfeuer

zugefallen


Playing with the words
“Zufall” (conincidence)
and “zugefallen” (destined).
Is love written in the stars?

See my poem Zugewogen
about longing for love,
happiness, and destiny,
or rather, providence.

A New Poem is Being Born

Der Nebel hebt sich

Der Nebel hebt sich

(Schloß Fasanerie bei Fulda)

Der Nebel hebt sich,
und der Rauhreif auf den Weiden,
feine Spitze, glitzert auf.

Aus dichten Fichtenschirmen sprühn
kapellenglockenhelle
Stimmen ohne Zahl.

Ein Vöglein folgt, dort oben, sieh,
mit dunklen Flügeln, gelber Brust,
ein Sonnenstrahl!

Ein niedrer Wolkenstreif muß weichen,
und der bleiche Mond, des Dunkels Geist,
desgleichen.

Der ausgelaugte Himmel blaut,
der federnd-feste Boden taut,
gurgelt und gärt…

Noch wehrt der Winter sich,–
bezwungen ist er schon.
Die Erde atmet wieder tiefer…

Und wer nur auf den Hügel steigt
und schaut und hört und spürt,
kriegt neue Kraft und Lust!

Christina Egan © 2017

A new poetic form: three lines in each stanza, with irregular lenght and irregular rhymes — but each stanza having ten stressed syllables, with one unstressed syllable in between, making the flow of the language regular, natural and musical at the same time!

The poem was written on February 14th. The Rhön mountains have a harsh climate with long winters characterised by cold and snow and fog. All the more is spring welcome, even the early signs of it…