The Purple Grape
The purple grape,
soaked with a whole summer,
bears more than sweetness in it:
secret sparks
which will burst on your tongue,
which will rise like fire
to your temples, your wrists.
The purple grape’s flesh,
crushed, filtered, fermented,
harbours a truth,
a dark and dense
and undiscovered truth,
a relentless ruler.
Find dreams flipping over
into life, find sun
running through your veins,
find the more
you were made for.
Christina Egan © 2006
Sext
(Midday prayer)
Amidst a day of darkness,
amidst a life of fight,
the pillars and the organ
build up a vault of light.
Somebody must be present
to hear the silent screams!
There’s help past understanding,
there’s hope beyond all dreams.
But where do you keep hiding?
O Lord, who has left whom?
Dispense a drop of mercy
on each of us this noon.
Christina Egan © 1998
The End of Lent
There’s more to life behind the troubled scene,
more light than mighty, timeless words can mean:
there is a truth that never lies,
a truth that fills the earth
with fragrant breath.
There’s more than we can fathom and esteem,
or ask for, seek for, need, desire, dream:
there is a love that never dies,
a love that will give birth
in very death.
Christina Egan © 1999
As Limpid as the Moon
Some people are as luminous,
as limpid as the moon:
with truthfulness amidst the lies
or happiness in gloom.
They float and glow across the road
or mesmerise a room;
they never fade, and when they’ve died,
they leave a shining tomb.
Christina Egan © 2016
Alabasterschale
Überm schwarzen Heer der Bäume,
überm grauen Heer der Gräber
ruft durch dunkelblaue Räume
eine Glocke unbeirrt.
Balanciert auf spitzem Pfahle,
schimmert ferne feingeädert
eine Alabasterschale:
fremdes riesiges Gestirn.
Überm schwarzen Heer der Bäume,
blätterlos und blütenträchtig,
überm grauen Heer der Steine
lädt die Glocke zum Gebet.
Überm hingestreckten Tale
steigt gemessen, schlicht und prächtig,
jene Alabasterschale,
bis sich uns das Herz erhebt.
Christina Egan © 2017
As Limpid as the Moon remembers my radiant parents-in-law.
Alabasterschale compares the full moon to a bowl of alabaster; the scene is the vast old Tottenham Cemetery in London. The poem integrates awe before Nature and faith in God (as worshipped in church etc.).
This text will be printed in the Münsterschwarzacher Bildkalender 2019.
Christina Egan 