Blacksmith's Ride To Sunrise Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The smoky ceiling breaks
into slashed clouds.

Branches of shredded silver
metal drift
and slowly ooze out

of a jeweler's workshop,
hands spinning
quartz and malachite.

Tell the blacksmith
his charcoal fumes are filling
lead and rust spaces

with black hawks
scrolling their eyes
for bronze patches

in spreading fawn tents
hiding chicks
to match out in rows
and columns

down aisles running
between columns
of gold bullion

an anvil is flattening out
to medallion panels
under a moon-lit esplanade.

(ii)

But a gold dawn
filtered out of yellow flames
from the blacksmith's cubicle

leaves sprays of dark fumes
quickly thinning out
into grey and pink patches

to stack up moonstones
and sapphire
opening the door

to a floating corridor
of gold splashing feathers
of a rising sun.

Still shaving off
gray hairs on a flint path
bleached by the sun's silver

and gold beams
trumpeting out from cones
of rays
for a full-fledged morning.