Red Storms Of Berries Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Red rains are heavy,
hands too few
to harvest glowing
coffee berries.

Red storm, slow
down with the raining
beans bouncing
off to melt and flow

into birds' throats,
as we take home little
for mats waiting
to spray them for
a gold showering sun

to scorch them
into grains shivering
in mortars under
landing and hammered
drumming pestles.

Slow down so
we can catch drizzling
grains for empty
mouth-watering baskets
still deep with space.

Slow down, slow
down for filtering eyes
diving into leaves
for ruby and candy grains

to make baskets
bleed with beaming
harvests spilling off

red beans to bounce
off in beads worn
by a garish coffee farm,
earth floor bleeding
with sweat-soaked
gobs of the spilled grains.

Another red storm
and gale brews and groans
through the coffee
galloping dancing field

waving only red
ribbons of the flowing
red grains igniting
smiles on faces

when they're clothed
in rose and scarlet
skin and deep flesh.

(ii)

Twisting hands shake
the trees to howl,
more grains pouring
down in jumping

and galloping cascades
under gold sunlight
spinning hot breezes,
arms poking through

thick leaves to pick
hidden berries
sneaking off behind
branches dropping

below the waist
to the feet, some
grains bouncing off
the slope to feed

chirping, twittering
birds asking
in their alto songs

men and women
to let them sip
juices from a few
beans flying off

as others roll down
the tilting hill into
trotting weaves
of birds waiting

to get drunk with more
gulps of berries'
sweet and spicy juice.

(iii)

On the slope tilting
into a leaning
dropping cliff, cascades
of coffee beans

fall into catching
and swallowing hands
sometimes leaking

and spilling off
cherry and garnet
berries rolling
down into the rattling
and chattering

mouths of ditches
and sneaking holes.

But more cascades
and glowing fires
of coffee beans drop

into basket hands
catching every grain
of clothed fleshy coffee.

Hands also catch
red caterpillars,
as thunder roars through
the coffee farm,

a young man having
burnt his palm
in the stings of a bubbling
volcano of caterpillars,

as he packs up to go
home, lightening-struck,
a chill of fright
still hanging down
his burnt-out spine.