What Is An Umbrella Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

What is
an umbrella,
if not
a mushroom,

its canopy
curved in
to shelter
folks sprayed,

untightened
gravel, after
the heavy wheels

of a stormy
mammy wagon
on broken
webbed feet,

hurricane
in their toes,
have made

landfall
on a field,
a sea
of grassy huts
and cottages

in gills
sitting shoulder
to shoulder,

tight air
their only walls
holding them
together
under a lampshade.

(ii)

O annulus,
a cream
mushroom
ring
holding a lamp

to shoot out
rays of light

and shower
split
and shredded
folks

with rain
to mold a dough
of clay

into the pegged
stalk
that plants
the umbrella

deep
into the mycelial
threads
that grip earth

right down
to its far-flung
mantle

to face
and duck a wing-
flapping
flying tempest

with an albatross
wingspan
sneezed out
from the red eyes
of a cold,

when chills
wrap you up into
into stone
and sinking bone.

(iii)

And air unseamed
with sun's
gold rays, hangs
with clouds

to burst
into showers
that shave

uncovered heads
with the rusty
rattling

blades and cutting
edges
of scissoring rain

shaving off
every lock
of hairy splashes,

cups of mud
stuck to the soles,
the only
flower remaining
of you,

but the mushroom's
volva, the only
umbrella handle
of you

is pegged deeper
into loam

to sprout with you
in a castle's
sky-brushing tower,
all others
in towering gills.