Beginenhof in Ghent

Beginenhof in Ghent

wie finde ich sie wieder
die reihen schwarzer türen
die zu den treppengiebeln
und tulpenbäumen führen

wie kann ich sie entdecken
die schlichten weißen mauern
die um erblühnde hecken
und rote häuser dauern

gewunden sind die gassen
versperrt von breiten flüssen
geborsten ist das pflaster
und meine schuh zerschlissen

wo nisten die gestalten
in schwarz und weißen trachten
wie hundert flinke schwalben
über den grauen grachten

wo sind die schönen schriftzüge
die weiß auf schwarz verkünden
die heiligen drei könige
wärn manchmal anzufinden

wie finde ich sie wieder
die schweren blanken türen
die durch bestirnte lieder
ins glühnde schweigen führen

Christina Egan © 2018

“House of the Three Wise Men” (Three Holy Kings, in other languages) and “House Jesus, Mary, Joseph” at a former Beguinage in Ghent (Klein Begijnhof).

This was a type of convent where the sisters were allowed to go out and also to leave after each year of service. I imagined the story of a woman who wants to rejoin the community and for some reason ‘cannot find it any more’.

Photographs: Christina Egan © 2018.

Cascades of Light

Cascades of Light

Cascades of light,
of mild, corn-coloured fire:
the sun pours itself out, down,
down across the black gulf
of space and time,
a flame, a smile,
onto the open rose,
the waiting face of the earth.

Christina Egan © 2004

Psalm

As warming as the sun’s first touch
after an age of ice.

The last love tastes like the first one:
radical, innocent.

No need to confirm with fire,
no need to confirm with words.

The world suspended in your eyes –
then life rolling out like a yellow-green valley.

Christina Egan © 2004

Photographs: Roses on the small island of Föhr, meadows on the tiny island of Hooge, both in the North Sea. Christina Egan © 2014.

An Average Life / And All My Youth

An Average Life

The admiral butterfly
a map of happiness
on the burnished green
of the ivy in May

its glamour
its poise
its place in the sun
imagine you had it

bright as a bracelet
fine as a feather
strong as a storm
imagine you were it

and you practised your movements
studied your speeches
turned up in good time –
and your part has been cancelled

the play goes ahead
with you as a servant
in black in the background
required to smile.

Christina Egan © 2010

 

And all my youth I have been old

Amidst the wealth of my existence
I suffer hunger dark and cold
I am invisibly imprisoned
and all my youth I have been old

On narrow shoulders I must carry
my illness like an awkward cross
I am inexorably burdened
by frailty and its offspring loss

Christina Egan © 2010

 

Magnolia in March

Magnolia in March

*

Gold under my tree:
daffodils, minted sunlight.
No gold in the sky.

*

Purple stars appear
beneath the bedroom window:
little sky on earth.

*

The bare black branches
hold a round yellow lantern:
the rising full moon.

*

Christina Egan © 2005/2016

Beetles on the Ark / Urban Copse

Beetles on the Ark
(Tottenham Cemetery)

The hundred trees in the old park
are like the creatures on an ark
or like a village closely knit,
rejoicing when the sun is lit,
relaxing when the world grows dark;
each tree another steady ark
that carries squirrels, crows and jays
and worms and beetles through the days.
A myriad leaves, and each a spark
of life on board the floating park!

Christina Egan © 2016

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Urban Copse
(Lordship Lane Recreation Ground, Tottenham)

There is the snow – thick flakes, and falling fast –
there is the snow, thick on the grass at last!
The fabric of the twigs turns black and white,
the ground reflects the veiled and waning light.

The air is pure, the field without a trace,
the urban copse becomes a sacred space:
as if true peace, true life indeed were near,
as if tranquillity and joy were here.

Christina Egan © 2017 

I read these poems at an event celebrating trees at Bruce Castle in December 2017. It was organised by Tottenham Trees, who campaign to ‘Plant for the Planet’ and have put up lovely photo galleries on their website.

Read the poems aloud to enjoy the sounds of the words, which emulate the fabric of the twigs and the whole web of Nature… and weave a spell, like poetry and song have done since there have been humans on earth.

The second poem can also serve as a pagan, secular, or interfaith Christmas poem. The wanderer encounters that peace and joy which only Heaven can give in Nature.

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Photographs: Christina Egan © 2017. The trees in Tottenham Cemetery and Bruce Castle Park which inspired the first poem!  You can see Bruce Castle behind the old oak — four or five hundred years old — in the second picture.

Palmenhaus / Palm House

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250 poems!

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Palmenhaus am Wolfsweg –
Palm House at Wolves Lane

Sattgrüne Segel,
wölben sich die Palmblätter
hier im Gewächshaus.

*

Green sails, filled with light,
with sap, the palm leaves billow
here in the greenhouse.

***

Blütentrompeten
antworten dem Wasserfall:
Kannst du’s vernehmen?

*

The flutes of flowers
answering the waterfall:
can you perceive it?

***

Dieser Tümpel ist
dem Schöpfer ein Tropfen,
der Schildkröte die Welt.

*

This round pond is
a drop to the Creator,
the world to the turtle.

***

Im schwarzen Wasser
das Spiegelspiel des Himmels,
der Blitz des Goldfischs.

*

In the black water
quivering of heavens,
lightning of a goldfish.

***

Aus nachtgleichem Naß
unter der grünen Brücke
schießt der rote Fisch.

*

From the night-like wet,
from under the bright-green bridge
the red fish shoots out.

***

Photographs: Christina Egan © 2013
German texts: Christina Egan © 2014
English texts: Christina Egan © 2015

Sonett der drei Seen

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, (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!