Bucket Hat On A Flower Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Across butterfly bushes
sits a moon flower,
its eyes open as caves
swallowing shadows
fallen from hills and trees.

The gardener still
carrying sleep crust
can hardly see
through gray mist,

as he gives plants
a noisy grating close shave
to trim hedges to size.

It's still dim gray
for a cotton morning,
but the sun
flapping silver wings
sails on, veering
into flashy angle

brightening up, its rays
polishing the garden
into a gleaming
canopy of leaves and flowers.

Through the loop
of a window,
the little boy goggles
at a plant,

throws a glance over
a hedge of orchids
to find a primrose

no longer wearing
a yellow crown,

but a cream bucket hat
sunk right down
beneath its waist beyond
trunk to rooted legs.

Dad, he exclaims
to his father,

the yellow crown
of a flowering plant
has turned
into a cream hat.

(ii)

No, says Mr. Tom Morgan,
it's not a cream hat,
but cream flowers.
No, his son bawls out,
a primrose's flowers are yellow,
not whitish or cream.

The gardener cackles
out that the sun is wearing
a silver hat of brightening rays,
while a plant is tucking in
his own hat from the hands

of moths, as he shakes
off the dripping petals of insects
to float off and melt
into the wallowing alabaster air,
as some roll off
across through tall grasses.

And the primrose
swells back into its crown
of yellow flowers,

some moths hanging down
to cling to the thighs and legs
of the flower, as it trails
a ripped-off brim of a hat,
as the young lad
mutters to the father:

The gardener has removed
the bucket hat, giving
the primrose an ugly shave,
as the garden's clown is gone.