Cape Of All Hopes Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

When a teenager in Ambazonia,
We went out swimming,
Front-and back-stroking,
But also flipping out

Butterfly and condor wings
In the emerald
And cyan Atlantic Ocean
Between a land stretch into the sea
We sweetly called heaven,

A cape carrying a pile weave
Of hilly thick closely knit,
Embroidered and stitched
Tall hunter and army green canopy

Of sky-brushingstitched trees
And Indian bamboos
Raising tallglistening arms
Above dreadlocked heads,

As they flipped out heavy fingers
Spinning on their tips
Feathery and hairy birdtails
Amid graphite, shadow
And hanging pewter afterfeathers.

(i)

The canopy, we believed,
Harbored a deity
We thirsted to visit
On a green stripof land of many colors,
A rolling rainbow on bright days

Sticking far out into the sea
Of high curly waves
And spiraling
Porpoises riding on bicycles
Pedaled in deep
Earth mantle-touching waters

Cutting off Fernando Po
Lying heavily clothed
In aluminum- and brick-roofed
Houses sleeping
Under a sharp-rayed sun.

Separating Man O'War Bay
Behind us
And Victoria, a town of sun fire
On a day of rays
Striking with gold evened out palms,
And lime light-beaded town
On onyx and ebony nights

Flung far out beyond
A cerulean and baby blue horizon
On the other side
Of heaven across the Atlantic Ocean
At the foot of Mount Fako,

A multi-tusked
And trunked ambling giant elephant
Of land creeping north
Across Kumba, Mamfe

And the undulating hills of Bamenda
We craved like sharks to see,
When the sky lowered itself
Below air's wallowing waves
Of stretchy turquoise hanging curtains
And teal screens across tiffany
Shades below an azure ceiling.

(iii)

On one bright afternoon,
when carpet-rolling waters had
Cartwheeled and run back
Into the high seas,
Leaving behind shallow waters

On an unclothed sea bed
Of crabs, shells and crawling debris
Of dead leaves
And sticky clay, we called the sea
Our new nest of all hopes,

As we swam-walked
Across low waves to the cape of heaven,
Where a lone fisherman
Taking a break under the shady nook
Of overhanging trees
Ushered me onto his shore.

He reassured me
The low waters posed no threat to me,
As I began to swim walk back
To Man O'War Bay:

That shallow walk of a trip
To heaven left
An indelible mark
In my inner bowl of flashy memories,

As I bawled out, boasting
To tongue-swallowing friends
In the dormitory at night
I'd visited heaven
On a clayey floor of crabs

Crawling on gossamer strings
Of wheels across the bay,
And spoken
To God's image, the fisherman.