Gold Over Murmuring Heads Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

How lush gold
and streaks of silver
have settled

over the hat-wearing
hills and mountains.

Amid deep-rooted
trees and tall stems,

pushing leaves
into a sky's ridges
and valleys in the clouds,

hills weave chins and feet
and swing waists
around Boyo Mountain.

Stand face to face,
flip shadows
into deepening gorges

after a fast ride
into each other
with a sparrow's flight.

They stand still
and quiet,
ambling, arms on shoulders,
around each other
with an eye's swap and spin.

Like herons and cranes,
tall-necked heaps
and mounds of earth trot

and waddle below
a bloated sky,
on sprinkled drizzles and poured

thick showers cutting
rayed light into pieces
of polished grasses and shrubs.

(ii)

The hills and mountains
trot through swamps
and streams stitching feet
with silver waters.

How these heights
sometimes bow to their toes
to see their shadows
stretching into sun-glazed waters,

the mirrors that warn
of buffalo-horned khaki men,
who bounce in

with sliding rocks, mountain
faces murmuring
at each other, heads held
high to cut off sleep.

But nobody dares
to close eyes
at trudging horned beasts

taller than mountains
with the muzzles they carry.

But shorter than
the rising peaked mounds,
their boots kissing earth,

as folks murmur
like streams running faster
than rattling invaders,

their spark plugs
running out of stars
to shoot at

a sun-glazed people,
a single ray
their only weapon.