sonnwendkind
dem normgerechten
hochleistungsfähigen
menschenkäfig
aus stahlundglas
entronnen
fürfünfminuten
aufundab-
wandern in
windatem und
sonnenkuß
stille-
stehen
sich um-
schauen
sich
strecken
dem menschenkäfig
entwendet
von heimlicher
lebensflut
unter unsichtbaren
sternenspiralen
aufundab-
steigen in
heckenduft und
möwenruf
sonnenstrahl
sein
immerzu unterwegs
immer schon angekommen
menschenkind
sonnwendkind
Christina Egan ©2019
sunshine
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.
First Yellow Day
First Yellow Day
softly
tread softly
on the skin
of the earth
it is stretching
in a warming waterfall
in the royal rays
of the newborn sun
it is pushing
slender green bodies
and fragile fair heads
out of dark sleep
it is breathing
slowly for you
so breathe
breathe slowly
newborn is the grass
newborn is the year
weightless is the day
weightless is your heart
faded stacked shapes
are filling with colour
like care-worn faces
are smoothed and flushed
and smiles are rising
like yellow balloons
effortless guileless
into boundless blue
Christina Egan ©2019
Written on a warm and sunny day in late February. Climate change is palpable, but sometimes it is pleasant…
Overcast (I took the bus)
Overcast
I did not read the book
I took
I did not cast a glance
not once
I took the bus and dreamt
no end
I wrote some verse of love
and stuff
I dreamt that in the street
we’d meet
and summer would return
and burn
and that would be the date
from fate:
the sun and you and me
all three
Christina Egan ©2023
There is evidently a lot of waiting for sunshine in northern latitudes, as in Warten ist der Winter and Hinter dem Olivenbaum …
This playful verse from a London double-decker bus was actually written in mid-August, when it should be bright and hot everywhere; yet the weather has always been unpredictable and is now turning seriously unstable. In this poem, the summer is not returning after the period of winter but after a long, dull, cool break between early and late heatwaves.
rosengarten (II. sprühendgrau)
rosengarten
II.
sprühendgrau
die ungeahnten sonnenglanz vergießen
die regenschauer und den regenbogen
zu einem milden meeresgrau verwoben
die augen sollen meine verse grüßen.
dem nebelland das immerkalte wogen
in ungestümem reigentanz umschließen
den inseln voller sprühendgrüner wiesen
sind jene augen ursprünglich enthoben.
drum frag ich nicht nach lilien und lavendel
die flammen sprühen auf gebeugtem stengel
noch nach des südens uferlosem blau
nichts brauche ich als meinen kleinen garten
wo alle wunder lächelnd meiner warten
die bunte welt geballt in sprühendgrau.
Christina Egan ©2023
This sonnet is part of a cycle of 14 poems, whereby each line of the first one (rosengarten I. tiefversteckt) furnishes the first line of a new sonnet.
The island described here is Ireland, but the cycle takes you to other islands, as well as to the palace gardens of Würzburg, Germany, which first inspired me.
Word cloud of colours in the German sonnet cycle (rosengarten I-XIV), generated on the Simple Word Cloud Generator. In the middle are “colourful”, “green”, and “golden”. Since the colours of the roses are not described, the roses themselves are added.
The Red Helicopter (Tottenham)
The Red Helicopter
(Tottenham)
Some of us are pushing the swings
in the park, a powerful pendulum,
some are hurrying for their daily bread,
counting the pennies in their pockets,
and all are treading on rustling leaves,
fallen too soon, too soon this year,
for the world is brittle with heat
and creaking and breaking apart.
The rain has come and gone
but the clouds have stayed:
No rainbow today
over the weathered church.
The blue emerges, the brightness
of grass, of the thousand things,
and the old oak stands smiling.
Higher the swings go and higher –
Then the sky bursts
with the lion’s roar
of the helicopter, closer, close,
here, the colour of blood.
And we look at each other
and fear the worst and
know it has happened
again.
A street between brick walls,
a random courtyard
or a random corner
has been stained,
and from the earth cries
someone’s blood,
someone’s brother’s blood,
our brother’s blood.
Christina Egan ©2023
I have seen the red helicopter of the emergency services land in parks in Tottenham (Lordship Recreation Ground and Bruce Castle Park). In both cases it was the middle of the day, and in both cases, a teenager had been stabbed, once fatally and once nearly so. Another young man was shot and left to die in Tottenham Cemetery. All these green spaces are vast and idyllic.
See Himmelblaue Uhr (Tottenham) for Bruce Castle Park as a haven of tranquillity and Gedächtnisgarten zu Tottenham for the old cemetery as a garden of peace.
Die Wege von Malta
Die Wege von Malta
Über das zerrissene
blütensprühende Gestein
legt sich das zerschlissene
Fischernetz im Sonnenschein:
Eselswege, Autostraßen,
steil und krumm und oftgeflickt,
Klosterhöfe, Promenaden,
salzbehaucht und dufterquickt.
Netz von Stiegen, Steigen, Pfaden
wandelt flugs ein Wolkenbruch
zu Kanälen und Kaskaden,
füllt die ausgedörrte Schlucht,
tränkt die berstendgrünen Triften,
häuft den sonnengoldnen Sand,
formt den Lehm der stolzen Küsten,
höhlt die wilde Felsenwand…
Christina Egan © 2018
A golden and green impression of Malta Island in February —
glorious spring! — Photograph: Christina Egan © 2018.
When the Snow Falls
When the Snow Falls
When the snow falls,
when the snow calls
with its crystal-clear voice,
when the streets hum,
when the streets drum
with their boisterous noise,
when the fog shifts,
when the fog lifts
and the sun gilds the stone –
let your smile grow,
for a while know
you are never alone
Christina Egan © 2019
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2017.
This poem was commissioned for a Christmas card by a university library.
Feel free to write or print it in your cards, as long as acknowledge me as the author somewhere.
Coal Tits / Leaf Surf
Coal Tits
Coal tits are weaving through the leaves,
leaves tinged with gold and tinged with rust;
the earth, relieved of darkness, breathes
before the leaves will turn to dust.
Coal tits are chirping in the leaves,
wings tinged with fire, tinged with ashes;
their song is weaving with the breeze
through our windows’ rigid meshes…
Christina Egan © 2017
Leaf Surf
The lawn lies like an emerald bay,
like golden sand the fallen leaves.
The wind is waltzing on the roofs,
the wind is leaping through the streets,
it rolls into the shimmering heaps,
it stirs them up, it whirls them up,
it sweeps a wilful whispering surf
onto the sun-bathed autumn turf!
The earth takes one last joyful breath
before the shade falls like a spell.
That there is so much death in life
and so much dancing life in death…
Christina Egan © 2017
Photograph by makamuki0 (Marc Pascual).
sonnenschein essen
sonnenschein essen
I.
rot-goldnes feuerwerk
dichte garben unablässig:
die hohen wipfel am waldessaum
in der zärtlichen brise
schwarz geäderte kristallkugeln
feingefaserte korallenkegel:
die bäume zwischen den giebeln
gegen den steigenden tagstern
schimmernde rokokoperlen
und leuchtende granate:
die gelben birnen im laub
die roten äpfel im gras
II.
die welt betrachten
wie ein gemälde
bild um bild um
bild
den sonnenschein essen
wie brot
und das brot
wie ein geschenk
gleichgewicht
von tag und nacht
heute ist
heute
Christina Egan © 2018
Beach at Bansin on Usedom (Baltic Sea). —
Photograph: Christina Egan © 2017.
Christina Egan 