Flow Of Landing Pigeons Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The two-toned
lawn lies still
by an emerald stretch
of wind-bowed
flowering plants

shouting for height
above crawling
greenery flowing

quietly on a flat table
with the pace
of a green river.

One part shaven low,
the other recently
mowed, its fingered
edges well
manicured to dissolve
into trimmed grasses.

Low mounds rise
only to level out
into a flat lawn carrying

a strip rolling
into the carpet
offield stretching
for half a mile.

(ii)

Skipping chirping
grasshoppers
sing louder soft-toned songs

swallowed by shrills
and hissing voices
from hibernated insects.

From my window
a thin-mouthed wind
blows into silence,

the only head gear
rising above dwarf grasses
and creeping shrubs.

How half-mouthed
windsstretch
their murmuring voices
to breezes sizzling

in a flat stretchy cauldron
rumbling and poaching
life in its thin skin
with no flesh of voice,

as another spate
of breezes sneeze
through shrubby umbrella-armed
trees flipping out

fingers of bobbing leaves
mumbling out songs

only to dissolve
into the sighs and hiccoughs
of dropping leaves in the wind.

(iii)

Where are the songbirds
to pump life
into this rolling greenish
cloud of a field

that has buried all mouths
and all flowery hue
beneath dead earth
and muted lakes carrying
no ripples to shout out

a veil of tiptoeing
and sneaking silence
crawling like cream worms
of air, clitellum split

to kill even thecreep
of flailing life
until a level strip of the field

flows with a cooing
river of pigeons
pushing their poking heads

into life'scloudy screen
now flowing
with mumbled chats,

as I chat myself back
muttering
to the rabbit-eared glowing hills
and valleys of the living room,

furniture and vases
throwing glances at me,
their eyes bawling out
we've missed you for a century.