turquoise

Orange and Turquoise (Crete)

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Orange and Turquoise
(Crete)

Fresco of red crocuses on orange ground near blue water.orange and amber
the southern soil
like fresh fruit
like lush flesh

turquoise and azure
the sun-steeped sea
like human eyes
like human souls

Christina Egan © 2012

orangerot und türkis
(Kreta)

Flourishes on a mural, turquoise on luminous red and yelloorangerot
und ocker loht
die stille bucht
wie fleisch und frucht

türkis azur
der wellentanz
wie augenglanz
und aurenspur

Christina Egan © 2016

 

Decorative paper, light-blue with ripples in yellow, red, white, green.A reddish orange and a greenish blue are complementary colours and will therefore be more striking in combination. 

In the Mediterranean, strong light and heat prevail even in late September.

I found this beach at the edge of the five-thousand-year-old town of Chania on Crete.

You can read more about the bright blue and green sea in Kretische Küste and about the reddish soil in The Dittany of Crete.

Murals in the royal palace at Knossos, Crete.
Watercolour of crocuses by Arthur J. Evans: Photograph provided by Digital Bodleian Library under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
Photograph of spirals: Harrieta171 via Wikimedia.

Decorative paper. Photograph provided by British Library through Flickr .

Tiefgelb / Tieftürkis

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Colour wheel with 18th century labels: clockwise from yellow over red to blue and green; one purple field has paled to pink.Tiefgelb

Die tiefgelbe Blume vor wollweißer Wand,
die frohrosa Büschel vor lehmbraunem Zaun,
der vollblaue Tag über kraftgrünem Land –
der rundbunte Sommer, ein tiefgelber Traum!

Christina Egan © 2016

Tieftürkis

Tieftürkis und lässig prächtig,
sonnensatt und sonnenträchtig
steht der Horizont noch spät.
Schwarze Flammen, schwanken Bäume,
stumm gestaltgewordne Träume,
wenn der wirre Nachtwind weht.

Liegt die Erde endlich nächtig,
scheint der Himmel übermächtig,
unerschöpfter Helle Quell.
Alle Sehnsucht kann noch fruchten
in verborgnen Gartenfluchten
oder einer höhern Welt.

Christina Egan © 2017

Colour adjectives develop only very slowly in languages all over the world. There are still not nearly enough! I don’t see why in German, we have the words ‘deep red’ and ‘deep blue’ — written as one word, even — but no ‘deep yellow’ or ‘deep turquoise’; so I am introducing them. I also made up a number of unusual descriptors for the first poem, leading up to the internally rhyming ‘rundbunt’ for multi-coloured in all colours of the earth or of the colour wheel.

Colour wheel with 18th century labels: clockwise from yellow over red to blue and green; one purple field has paled to pink.

 

Image: Arnoldus Lobedanius, Utrecht, 1744. (One purple field must have paled to pink.)

Reproduced with kind permission of the Library of Cologne University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule Köln).

La Mer, enfin

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

La Mer, enfin
(Cimetière marin, Sète)

Ô vagues de vers sincères et idolâtres…
Ce vaste pan de verre d’un vert bleuâtre
Entre cieux et ombres suspendu,
Et cet essaim neigeux de tombes en marbre
Parmi les flammes géantes noires des arbres :
La Mer, enfin. J’ai vu et j’ai vécu.

Ces fleurs en bas, comme lèvres entrouvertes,
Impérissables certes, mais inertes,
Moulues de cet argile du Midi ;
Ces fleurs en haut, rosées et scintillantes,
Ces tressaillantes et minces, mais vivantes !
Le Cimetière. J’ai vu et j’ai écrit.

Christina Egan © 2016

Light-blue sky and light-green ocean in the background, white tombs in the foregrund; in the front, a flat marble slabs decorated with two large pink flowers, one in clay and one in plastic.

 

Paul Valéry’s tomb on the Cimetière marin, which has become famous through his poem. It is shown and played all day in the neighbouring art museum erected as a homage to him.

These lines are closely related to Valéry’s. The durable but lifeless flowers are of clay and plastic; the perishable but living ones blossom on the bushes around. My picture and poem were created in early January!

An automatic translation into English may convey the meaning of  my French homage to Valéry quite well — but not the music of the words!

Photograph: Christina Egan © 2016

Arles im Winter

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Arles im Winter

Die Fensterläden wie ein Farbenkasten,
kornblumenblau und flieder und türkis;
die goldnen Wände, die im Wind verblaßten,
die Gasse, die den kurzen Schnee verschlief.

Die Bogengänge wie bestickte Bänder,
die Krippenbilder wie ein Glockenspiel…
Und das Theater wechselnder Gewänder,
wo nie – seit Rom – der letzte Vorhang fiel.

Die weiche Luft am weiten Strom von Norden,
wo beißendkalter Wind bis eben blies,–
er wälzt sich meerwärts, kostet wohl schon morgen
Kornblumenblau und Flieder und Türkis!

Christina Egan © 2016

Lane with old houses, window shutters in various shades of turquoise and green.The Old Town of Arles is huddled together within the precincts of the Roman city, next to the vast River Rhône  and close to its mouth into the Mediterranean Sea – with the churches built of the stones of the temples and the houses built with the stones of the theatre.

Down the funnel of the river valley, there is a forceful and often icy wind, the Mistral; but there is also a mild wind from south, the Wind from the Sea, which may warm up the city in the midst of winter, so that you can sit in the Roman ruins…

Model village on steep hills as backdrop to a nativity scene

There are exhibitions of nativity scenes and figurines in all styles, even contemporary, at Saint-Trophime; in another mediaeval church, a whole side-chapel is filled with a model village with rocks and trees, running water and flickering fire, and hundreds of tiny local people.

I have written another poem on Arles and the Vent de la mer  in French and English. This one here may work quite well in a translation software.

Photographs: Arles. Christina Egan © 2011.

The Mechanics of Love

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

The Mechanics of Love

the mechanics of love
have tolled the hour
have chained my heart
are pulling me towards you

the sunlit hills
of your guileless face
the turquoise surf
of your quiet voice

I cannot distinguish
what determines my steps
the mechanics of love
or your silvery forcefield

Christina Egan © 2012

These lines record some of the fundamental insights of my life: that falling in love is always a blend of true fascination with another person and of sheer emotional and physical need; and that one of the main factors attracting a woman to a man is his voice — utterly underrated throughout history! Perhaps because history has largely been written by men, and so have science and literature ? Well, I hope men are at least subconsciously drawn to a melodious voice, too!