A Gourd's Sanctuary Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In a green field of crops,
Where rivers
Of feathered thoughts gleam
And flow
Through bumpy rock
A simple gourd, mouth open
On one side of its neck,

Is perhaps the best luxury
For the mind squeezed and drained
Out of the ruins
Of a collapsed skyscraper,

A giant undulation of mounds
Of debris in which all and all
Is squeezed and pulverized into
Clouds of no color,

The crystal piece
Unfound, the diamond particle
Decimated, chewed off, raw,
By flames untamed by dim thoughts.

(ii)

But nothing is lost, nothing
Devoured by silt and dust,
But the brittle heart on a swing.

Nothing is lost, but the heart
That stays at peace with itself
Like a lone star in a pitch-dark night
Keeping its sharp ray steady
On an ever- camouflaged chameleon:

The shredded mind
That finds a safe place at the bottom
Of a deep gourd, sitting
Where melon seeds once thrived

In a compact ovule
From which new breeds of seeds
Sprout and bloom
Before another gourd is split open
And emptied of its seeds,

Where now lie beans and pebbles
Shaken to awaken birds
As rhythm thrills and elevates the ear
To a high peak, where
There's nothing to fear when the gourd drops.

For when it does -
Unlike a bottle, whose broken pieces
Swirl in blades that mangle
Sole and fallen body -

The gourd disintegrates into bowls
From which thick meals are scooped,
Especially cornbread
From the golden grain of life.

(iii)

Drop an empty bottlle
And flames from crystal mouths burn.
Drop an empty gourd
And quiet receptacles feed us

With quiet scoops - which is all we, birds,
Fetch in life's infinite clouds
Over no trees -.over low shadows
Where rain is stone and rock, water.