Leave Me Alone Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(song of the pangolin for world pangolin day)

(i)

I have shielded
myself
with stony wood,

as I roll through
seas of shrubs

and low grasses,
my only
outfit. My only
cottage and fortress.

I have grown
into stone
and still bone
with my piece
of silence

building me up
into a crawling
earth cloud,

as I hang out
away
from tramping feet.

Following
my traces
to a numen of rock.

(ii)

Lurking through
tunnels
of protruding stones
cemented
with dust and clay,

I have sprayed
my own dark skies
on ceilings of rock,

growing only
black flowers of night
to clothe me
with a blanketed fabric,

O dust stroking me
all day, as I roll
through tunnels of gravel

and paw-unchewed sands
dressing me up
in thick flannels of dust.

Lodge me,
O low skies
of arched tall grasses
making
herringbone weaves,

my only holed roofs
in my hide-out,

as thunder falls
from a muzzle's mouth
chipping off
my wooden stony skin.

(iii)

Leave me alone,
as I cruise off
like a ground missile

to the fortress
of my paired family,

a sweet buddy
chuffing and grunting
in a humming
in a whispering wind.

On rock, I spin,
a piece of rock
molded by rock
into a rocky climb,

as gale thrusts
arrows of haze,
and a flying dust binds.

On rock I'm rock.
Let my flying scales
hover off
like flitting stars,

as I'm spared
to grow
into a rock-clothed soldier
to fight for you.

February's third
Saturday
lands on stones,

broken snow,
the wheels
of love
from far flung lands

waving soft breezes
I don't wear,
as I breathe in dust.