yellow

traurige ernte / Funkenschlag

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

traurige ernte

purpurn häufen sich die trauben
äpfel rollen dick und gelb
unter meinen müden augen
neben meinem armen feld

unerwidert bleibt mein lächeln
meine tränen ungezählt
unbedeutend rinnt mein leben
und ich sterbe unvermählt

Christina Egan © 2011

Funkenschlag

Ich habe spät beim Wein gesessen
und in die Nacht hinausgedacht:
Ich werde ohne Erben sterben;
was hat mein Leben ausgemacht?

Ich habe nicht umsonst gelitten,
ich habe nicht umsonst gelacht:
Der Funkenschlag geschliff’ner Worte
hat oft schon Flammensprung entfacht.

Christina Egan © 2009

The first person is dejected in the belief that his or her life has not been fruitful; they feel lonely and poor, not necessarily in material terms. The second person is convinced that he or she has not  lived and suffered in vain: they made a difference through their words.

That successful person could be a politician or a novelist, for instance; but it does not matter, because everyone has made a difference to the world and has been irreplaceable. Our heirs are those who inherit our lives, whether in  money, property, things or in achievements, inventions, ideas.

My Pack of Cards

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

            My Pack of Cards

My pack of cards, when it was new,
was green and yellow, red and blue:
            from grass and leaves
            to golden sheaves,
            from glowing grapes
            to frosty flakes!
The leaves peeked out, unfurled, and grew,
flared up, fell off, when they were due.
            The fruits were round,
            the ice was sound.
            My year was clear,
            my joy was sheer.
My pack of cards is worn and torn –
my world is pale, and I’m forlorn.

            Christina Egan © 2016

Buds and fresh leaves on top of shoots above a parkIn children’s picture books, the four seasons are sometimes painted in four basic colours; everything is in its place, everything is perfect. Of course, it has never been like this: the weather is always unpredictable, particularly north of the Alps.

However, at the place where I grew up — Central Europe — the seasons were more clearly marked and more stable than on the British Isles. I also believe they were more regular: they seem confused and shifted just now. It is disorientating and worrying…

You can find an impression of undefinable weather at Cimmerian Summer — whether it is due to the British climate or to global changes, I do not know.

The poem also expresses nostalgia for childhood, when everything on earth seems in its place. It was inspired by children’s picture books, which often allocate four basic colours to the four seasons.

Photograph: Schloßpark Fulda. Christina Egan © 2014.

Sonett der drei Seen

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Sonett der drei Seen
(São Miguel, Azoren)

Der Teich war gelb, und gelbe Dämpfe stiegen
ins heiße Blau, umringt von dunklen Ranken,
als müde Glieder sich im Gelb entspannten
mit Blättern, die wie Schlick im Strudel trieben.
Der See war grün, und grüne Schimmer hingen
in steilen Hängen und in flachen Tiefen,
worunter ungeheure Feuer schliefen,–
zur rechten grün und himmelblau zur linken.
Und um die gelben, grünen, blauen Kessel
und buntbestickten Ufer lief ein Band
von schwarzen Felsen und von schwarzem Sand;
und darum – ohne Grenze, ohne Fessel
und ohne Form – das Meer, das Element…
O selig, wer die sanften Inseln kennt!

Christina Egan © 2016

Sete_cidades_(14267780070)

 

Sete Cidades, (São Miguel, Azores). Photograph by Aires Almeida from Portimão, Portugal, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The colours of the water are really like in the photo! See also my verse Acherons Mund  for the darker aspects of these isles.

These poems may work in a translation software, although you only get the meaning, not the sounds, which are like music and like the sounds of nature itself!

Gelbes Licht

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Gelbes Licht

Statue of young man, unfinished, as if the figure were wrestling itself free of the stone.

I.

Du trittst aus dem Beton hervor,
als trätest du aus einer Wand
und durch ein großes goldnes Tor
in blühndes dufterfülltes Land…

Dabei ist’s bloß ein Platz, ein Park
und gelbes Licht und gelbes Laub;
doch wirst du wieder froh und stark
von etwas Wärme auf der Haut.

 

II.Table surface of bright yellow mosaic, with café chairs on the grass, sunlit.

O milder honiggoldner Wein
im Riesenkelch aus Bergkristall:
Noch fließt das Herbstlicht süß und rein.
O Augenblick! O Sonnenstrahl!

Noch fließt die Kraft, noch fließt der Trost,
solang der Himmel zaghaft blaut.
Man weiß nicht, was das Auge kost:
Ist’s gelbes Licht? Ist’s gelbes Laub?

Christina Egan © 2016

‘Young Slave’ by Michelangelo.  Photograph by Jörg Bittner Unna (own work) via Wikimedia Commons.

Roadside café in Morocco in midwinter. Photograph: Christina Egan © 2012.

 

“Still the autumn light flows, sweet and pure… I felt it in England this afternoon, on top of a high building! Yet the line of the last pleasant sunshine is moving inexorably downwards from the northernmost regions through the temperate ones, its duration is shrinking, and so the space you can catch it at… When the light is lowest, though, it starts rising again, growing again.

By the way: “No matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning, and America will still be the greatest nation on Earth,” President Barack Obama announced during election night 2016. Not so: the United States have definitely exposed themselves not to be the greatest country on earth; and the sun would be darkened on an occasion like 9/11, or a nuclear bomb anywhere in the world, or a natural disaster due to technologies like fracking.

Mer de miel

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

 Clouds in hte sunset, looking like a bright yellow sea, an orange coast and purple sky. An optic illusion above a real coast (not visible here).

Mer de miel
(Sète)

Levez vos yeux vers ce vitrail doré,
d’un jaune plus doux, d’un jaune plus pâle possible :
une baie cernée de hauts rochers
d’un bleu brumeux… Un crépuscule paisible.

Clignez vos yeux à ce vitrail distant,
mer de miel, montagne mauve, sauvage :
tout flotte au dessus de l’horizon –
des eaux de feu, une terre de nuages !

Ce paysage d’un or incomparable
s’évanouit et passe, une image…
Ou serait ça la côte impérissable
et notre terre et mer le grand mirage ?

Christina Egan © 2016

This poem takes up an idea from ancient pagan and Christian philosophy: our world may be only a pale reflexion of a higher, perfect, world. Those ‘heavens’, however, are an inaccessible and unimaginable place — beyond our universe — for which the visible sky is only an image.

The fiery sunset which took me quite literally ‘out of this world’ occurred in midwinter on one of the northernmost beaches of the Mediterranean, at the outskirts of Sète. For a daytime poem and photograph on the sea around Sète, see La Mer, enfin.

Clouds in the sunset, looking like a bright yellow sea, an orange coast and purple sky. An optic illusion above a real coast (also visible here).

Photographs: The sky above the coast in Sète, France. Christina Egan © 2016

Orange Butterflies

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Orange Butterflies
(Monarch Butterflies)

Brittle ochre leaves…
No – sinewy butterflies,
waiting through winter!

*

Orange butterflies,
tiny, tender, untiring,
crossing continents.

*

A swift golden cloud:
a million bright butterflies
following their stars.

*

Christina Egan © 2016

Clusters of deep-orange butterflies on deep-green leaves, similary shaped.

Monarch butterflies cluster in Santa Cruz, California.
Photograph by Brocken Inaglory via Wikimedia Commons.

Der Baum im Schulhof

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Der Baum im Schulhof
(Marienschule Fulda)

Das Bäumchen stand im rosa Kleid,
das Mädchen stand im blauen;
sie waren fünfzehn Jahre alt
und lieblich anzuschauen,
wenn auch noch zierlich, kindlich gar,
nichts als ein Bündel Blüten…
Im Norden lag ein gelbes Haus,
der Schulhof lag im Süden.

Und als sie sich nun wiedersehn
in eben jenen Mauern,
da sind sie fünfzig Jahre alt
und herrlich anzuschauen,
wie Wolken stattlich hingewölbt
und strahlend unter Schauern:
der Baum im dunkelrosa Kleid,
die Frau im dunkelblauen.

Christina Egan © 2015

—

You can look at the blossoming  Tree in the Schoolyard
and the yellow building online at Marienschule Fulda. 

The story of the schoolgirl and the tree, meeting at fifteen
years old and then at fifty, may work in a translation software.

Heimat gibt es doppelt

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Heimat gibt es doppelt

Heimat gibt es doppelt: Heimat deiner Jugend,
Kopfsteinpflaster unter den karierten Schuhn;
anderswo vielleicht dann Heimat deines Herzens,
wo gewundne unsichtbare Wurzeln ruhn,

wo die Glocken süß und voll Verheißung beben
wie die frühen fliederfarbnen Azaleen,
wo die vielen flachen blassen Hausfassaden
lächeln, wenn die Wolkenschatten weiterwehn….

wo vor himmelstürmend hohen Kirchentürmen
glutrot oder sonnengelb die Blüten sprühn
und der Teppich der Jahrhunderte darunter
ruft, um deinen Lebensstrang hineinzuziehn.

Christina Egan © 2010

—

Another love letter to my favourite city, Cologne!

Roof-Tile / Plateau

~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Roof-Tile
(Béziers)

Lower half shows ancient wall with lichen and moss, upper half houses and roofs with motley tiles

A roof-tile, grooved: a hill, a dell,
in broken ochre, earthy red,
with greenish circles in between;
a piece of world, of time a shred.

And then I see: the whole old roof
is such a patch of orange clay –
the whole old town in weathered brown,
resplendent in a tender ray!

Christina Egan © 2016

—

Plateau
(Béziers)

Roof with motley tiles - Detail of above photo

Life is a gnarled and narrow hill,
so steep as scarcely to be climbed:
you scramble, stumble, slide or fall,
you stay below, you stay behind.

Then opens, through a hedge or wall,
a gap, a gate, an avenue,
a whole plateau, a spilling well,
a plain beneath your startled view!

Christina Egan © 2016

—

Round basin in park, with trees, houses and statue mirroredTwo views from the ancient city of Béziers in France, which is piled up
on a couple of steep hilltops: the first view is from the Cathedral tower; the second, from the park called Parc des poètes / Plateau des poètes.

Well… the respite after struggles and setbacks might be found in enjoying or creating art — or in life itself!

Old Town of Beziers, with red roofs dominating, landscape round horizon.While getting lost and strained in the lanes of Béziers reminded me of nightmares, exploring the Cathedral like a giant Crystal Rock  induced me to create the word ‘lightmare’!

Photographs: Béziers from the Cathedral roof ; Parc des poètes. Christina Egan © 2016