Forgotten Shadow Poem by Felix Bongjoh

,
(i)

Digging into a shapeless past
Of clouds that hung
Over me like boulder
No bulldozer could thaw off,

I pull in memories
Of my abandoned home,
My children left
Only with air to clothe

And shelter them
In my breezy gazes
And gawks they missed
For centuries,

As I was excavating mounds
Of scribbled scripts
And bird-droppings-stained
Sheets my eyes had pecked
Like a woodpecker
On pine tree's flesh and blood,

When I went out
For light-year long weeks
On missions to far-flung
Places to dig out,

Filter and sift
With microscopes from tunnels
Of scooping
And raking through paperwork

Amid clouds that fell
On me like boulder
And sacks of gabbro
In a typhoon
of memos and mementos.

(ii)

When I dived back home
In a canoe heavy
With my stretchy expedition
Of fish of projects

Scooped out from a cauldron
Of bubbling facts
And wing-flapping figures
I pulled in

Through blizzards
Leaving me with chapped skin
Of a hot brain loaded
With wallowing fruit flies,

I tottered up my doorstep,
To find everybody
In my hollow home
Still wrapped up in the chills
Of my absence.

A crystal vase
On the center table
Flapped its stroking wings,

But I missed a friend
Always stepping
Into my living room before I did:

A silhouette in a mirror
Screaming at me
"I hope you've not forgotten me".