The Tornado Also Smiles Poem by Felix Bongjoh

The tornado also smiles
The tornado also smiles,
As it spirals cross the shrubs,
Flowers beaming
With the effervescence of a kiss,
Snobbishly unreturned,
A hand stretched out for a salute.
But it grabs a thorny cane
Tossed out from an unshakeable tree trunk
By an abrupt gyration.

The cane is one of fortune,
A stem detached from
A tired tree branch fleeing
From the servitude of belonging,
Where it doesn't belong.
The branch is better off
Propping the hand perpetually,

Fondling it, as we climb
The steep hill of life. Just fife
It to the garrison at the peak,
From which an arrow misses
No target in the smiling tornado
Swinging around friendly fire
With a smile more sky-slashing
Than lightning's brief visit
To an isolated dry heart. But lightning
Goes home before its visit begins,

Whereas the beam of a flower's ray
Leaves a luster, a glow,
A wound that burns, even as it smiles
Behind the screen of routine.

Even as I cry behind the screen
Of an overwhelming smile,
Receiving a long-awaited medal
For a fatal risk, for a lost limb,
For an eye forgone. After the rumble
Of a tornado, here I smile
At miles of trek, no tiles on my path,
But talkative cobbles that keep on
Rambling, while the quite soldier
Walks on with a smile that fights
A battle more fiercely
Than an estranged bullet from a ditch.

When the rustle of a bush-tornado
Opens a flower's lips for a smile,
The quiet mouth shut up just before
A visiting buzzing bee
Sinks into a flower's bowels of love.