Hats Of Fire Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In a nook
carved out under
a long-armed tree
full of shadows,

its branches
falling
over my shoulders
in the garden,

I wear and tilt
a hat of light
swinging and spinning

rainbow
and comet hue
away from the sun,

a crown of butterflies
bouncing back
from bright roses.

(ii)

O look at magenta
and garnet flowers
drinking
butterfly hue,
as they hear wasps
swing in flight.

Bow low under
cerulean and cyan
pieces of sky
falling with the wind.

Stoop as an indigo
speck of cloud
falls from the sky

to land on my head
grown fat
with fluttering
and flittering hue,
spraying me
with whizzing songs,

as they bob
and flitter
into my sleeping eyes.

(iii)

How did I snore off
the day, as crowns
of darted colors
were tucked through
my bushy sideburns,

while other butterflies
and ashy moths
swam through the floating
flowering colors

of my shirt
hanging
down my ribs
like a branch
of leaves and flowers.

(iv)

I slept to a snore
and deep rumble.

I slept
to the rhythm of a buzzing
trumpet
my snore blowing
into its stretchy mouth,

drawing in insects
to clothe and crown me
with their wings
of flying fleeting colors.

Yellow butterflies,
red butterflies ignited
safari hats
of fire of I wore
throughout my sleep,

as my five-year old son
tells me now
cackling off like a fire,
as he giggles off

that when my hats
were too thick
to sit softly on me,

he fanned them away,
as they flowed off
like a colorful zephyr.