Pace Up Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Dusk falls,
tossing
down
a burnt mass
of graphite sky,

a giant
black hawk
flapping
wings,

as it pulls down
carob
and tawny air.

The hawk
pecks at woody air,
as it licks
soft
snail heels

growing
into the mush
and bog
of melting
soles,

pushing
refugees' webbed
broom feet

to waddle
across the marsh
and swamp
of their piercing fear

after specks
of burning sun
have ground
bright rays
of light into the soot

of a crust-baked
evening in embers,
spreading

gray ashes
still waving gold flames.

(ii)

Dusk, pace up
your wheels
on the upper arm

of your
goldenrod
machine,

and the strangled
and crawling

master strap
and wire rope
of your raised crane

to find
the landing eagle
of your whinnying
lifting hook

with sturdy hands
to roll down
its full ebony

and ink body
to harbor
out-of-nest folks.

Let dusk spread
out Its hands
to roll

and pull
down
an onyx blanket
into a pitch night.

Let this thick
nest
of night wrap up
these
fleeing folks

to cruise
with the hollows
of air through

charcoal gray
hills
and pantone black
valleys
of a harboring
night,

their only
safe fort
flapping a peregrine
falcon's
wings of speed

and an albatross
wingspan
of air
to build
an expanding field
of a home.