Innocence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Wind-splashed
edelweiss
from rising silver waters,
as passion-filled
dill stays mute.

The withered freesia
not to be touched
by a bee's pollen,

so you don't know
the taste of nectar

delivered from a flower's
breezy nipple
perched on a cliffy shore.

The hull that made it
to a sea bed's silt,
still sleeping
with a blue fin tuna,

while a bony
sunfish flies around
with new bird wings.

And a sun's rays
shoots hot arrows
to pierce fleshy fish
burnt to ashes
by fires in a spinning sun.

O shore
of innocence, a fisherman's
empty canoe
full of sun and no fish.

Not carrying a bone
with a hand stretched
to toss off breezes

to those who've not tasted
its deep waters.

(ii)

And to you rose
from a desert's chest,
innocence takes
a dip in the pool
of an expanding sea

without sipping
salt's cutting daisy powder
dappling the fisherman's face
with clouds
and the smoky ash
from a fire within,

burning all wooden flesh,
leaving no paddle
for the man
carrying a desert in his canoe,

when waters with leaves
and stems of fish,
only herringbones and no flesh
in earthenware cauldrons,

making children's eyes water
with love fled to the desert.