Grab It From A Soft Angle Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The moment's flower shines
brightest in the crystal plate

of the landing sun. It stands
firm, spinning on the same spot
it burnt into a shadow,

nobody to grab it, a gold fruit
in a sun-lit wind
wearing wrinkles on its face.

Until you grab it from the right
angle. A wrong tilt

flings the fruit off a slope to roll
down a cliff's pocket,
a nest woven from a tuft of grass.

(ii)

Washed off by a cataract
into the hands of birds nibbling off
its fleshiest nectar,

a child discovers the gem, one
in a thousand no tree will bear
in an orchard, where fruits

light up trees like stars before
they become scars in the eyes
of the hunter, who waited too long
to pick it for his empty bag.

You went out for flowers,
but let no fruit pluck your hands,

as you make no crane
of your hand to pick the fruit
from the right angle.

(iii)

A picky hunter is a mountain
top's beggar, scooping out
the gem in a thick valley
of interwoven trees below his brow
only to slip off.

The fruit hangs down from
your hand's tree,

the bowl of your palm never misses
the yawning road
down your bag, where reeds
and flowering grasses

toss out seeds your intention
never figured out.

Stroke the fruit at your brow.
Throw a net over grasses

to grab a fruit that landed in the home
of birds. Let the hunter
swirl into a fisherman's net to spray

a nest for the a sunny spot
in a crystal tray, grasses
opening their arms and palms wide
to grab melting gems.
Widen a soft angle
with the crow bar of will.