Night Shepherd Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A low-gear gale
throttles night
with a floated hum.

Changes tone
to a purr and thrum.

Black bushes
of evening sky grow
through
air's shivering buzz.

Brush sheets of breeze
to spray
flint space across
a yawning window.

Quiver in feats
of a sneeze,
as leaves whisper

from a swimming,
horn-blowing tree
and fly down,
flapping bird's wings.

They squelch
through
a swollen muddy lawn

softened by dawn
still light years off,

a night sky flinging back
rays of sun
woven by jumping
cutting rays

ricocheted
by a lake's silver mat.

(ii)

In the bush
of my layered
beddings,
I turn over,

my arms
branchy thick-lipped
machetes
clearing off threads
from ripped sheets

squeaking
through springs and wires
from flying
window-hurled puffs.

My legs squirrel
out bobbing
through sheets

and a blanket
creeping, slithering
under leafy stalks
of blanket seams.

Falling out
with the back
of a black sheep
bleating
under my bed.

And through grasslands
of wool
unfolding from balls
of thick threads
I kick with rod legs,

I guide my loud
cave-mouthed animals
to sleep
under a pillow
harboring silence.