Gaze Down Into A Mirror Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(crafted from a group of flamingos)


(i)

As five patches
of goldenrod clouds
climb ladders
to settle
on a sky's lower compartment,

cornsilk space drifts in
with a softer chubby-cheeked sky.

The sun's silver glow
sprays water with cellophane
thinning out

into a wallowing pearl
and cream planting
an expanding unframed mirror.

The floating logy sky
of burlywood
and tan clouds sails low,
dropping, drooped,

into ridges and furrows
of water steered
by a rustling, whistling wind

into a shallow creeping
lake in ripples pushing
heads and tails
of sun-lit water into itself.

The lake also devours
flying wings,
small birds pirouetting
on edges of cloudy fibers

weaving beige streaks
running through a corridor
of sky and lanes
through shifting canopies.

(ii)

Beaked cream clouds
stand for a flash of sun
with a darted swift, and swivel
on stemmylegs,

as they swirl and stagger
into an expandingmirror
of water stretching its hands out

to an unkempt green shore,
as they float on their milky selves,
ropy flamingos drinking
their shadows froma watershed

in deepcreases andripples,
as sands rise
and spread out floors
on the back of silt.

O rope-necked birds
walking on
light high-heeled boots
through a flame

of sunny water melting life
into tall springing legs

walking on hidden
angles of themselves,

as they sketch
breaking stars on silt
carrying a bird-woven sky.

(iii)

As I spin clouds
within me
with every weightless stride
of a bird shrugging
off a heavy cream cloud of itself,

I grab my woody clouds
and tramp on their shadows

breaking beneath
my silt thickening a skin
into a smooth screen,

on which I read
squiggles of life with birds
rising above their trampled stars
on breaking silt
under a stretchy mirror of water.