Winter Sunrise in Morocco
the rainbow scarf of the sky
stretched out above the battlements
awesome and unnoticed
by the markets which never sleep
and millions of golden roses
rolled out along the highways
in the carved and inlaid caskets
of the powdery-pink courtyards
strings of peach-coloured roses
clusters of orange-blossom and fruit
Christina Egan © 2012
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2012
You can read a German poem about a Moroccan city at In Marrakesch. The buildings and walls of Marrakesh are pink by law!
Around the turn of the year, I found it warm and sunny by day and pleasantly mild by night. In fact, people were hoping for some rain…
—
Winter sunrise in England
at the edge of the orb of the earth
a mighty web of finest twigs
painted onto leaf gold
by a master’s hand
and then the blob of molten gold
so bright that it seems to melt them too
like a favour from the heavens
like the face of a god
as if life were possible
one more day one more winter
Christina Egan © 2012
—
In northern Europe, the winter is so hard that by the beginning of spring, you may feel, even if you are not at all old, that it was the last one you reached.
In Germany, it is cold by day and by night for many months, there is snow and ice, and above all, the nights are long and the days often dull so that you may not see the face of the sun for days; in England, the cold is less bitter, but — which is worse — it reaches indoors…
This is actually a set of winter poems: Morocco in midwinter is like northern Europe in midsummer! Marrakesh welcomes you with warm sunshine, thousands of palm-trees and tens of thousands of roses in all colours… Around the city, wherever the ancient irrigation system does not reach, the land stretches dry and dusty.
Christina Egan 