A Phoenix's Home Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(Based on a spate of eagle-eyed light)

(i)

The sun shines,
fire and glow,
breathing out

a cool wavy cotton
and swirling daisy
by the banks

of a light's river
swooshed off by mist
brewing a transparent
glass of silver

and cream sitting
on a drifting
star-lit ripples
of a glittering lake,

every star melting
into a garden
of toucans and rollers.

(ii)

In a widening
flowering nebula
peaking
with a tree

to climb to a pyramid,
a robin sings.

Beyond sun's
eggshell
and feathery horizon

every flower
spins in indigo
and blush rose.

What trail
has a comet flipped
back to spray

every graphite cloud
into egret wings

sprinkling snow specks
of light carried
by air's heightening
candle stems
spitting out glow

in creeping flames
yellow butterflies
of gold and dandelion light.

(iii)

Paradise O Paradise
on a mountain
of strokes
and fondles
burning in a sun's ash.

Let the gloss
of a wing-flapping
phoenix
drinking flames

to spin life anew
on sky's tallest tree
fly off,

a new-born phoenix
from a volcano of light
sneezing out

a squawking,
whimpering baby
blowing life's trumpet
with a zephyr.