Brown Butterflies Of November Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

After gales have
unclothed trees,
leaving them
skeletons dressed in
scaly barks,

as they stretch out
phalanges
and broomstick twigs,
maples swing
in dying spines

drifting towards death,
as fingers break
and tumble onto
earth's cut-off floor.

(ii)

But maple tree,
from loamy earth
you sprout;

from deep chambers
sinking
into a mantle,

you'll dive back,
dry arms
clean shaven of leaves,
body smoothed out,

as hanging petioles
are plucked
and dumped into
coffins of wheelbarrows,

the daily cleaner
the only undertaker
seeing you off

at your grave,
while
breezes on knees
whisper and bawl out
a gale's orison,

the midday angelus
parroted off
for a sap-swelled trunk
and green branches
of a new maple tree.

(iii)

Aha, in winged
howling winds
trumpeting
the maple tree's
burial,

as it stands in ribs
and dry twigs
like a giant spider,

singing breezes
fly brown butterflies

from bloodless
leaves still clinging
to branch
and trunk without veins,

but no burial
takes place;
only a leaf-thick
earth grows into mulch,

as hanging butterflies
of leaves still
swelling into
brown birds fly

from the scaly
skin of fleshless trees
to breathe in life,

when December rolls
to its last milepost
to rebirth trees
with a lotus' deity.