Gardens Of Canyon Walls Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for a group of climbing travelers on love's stiff voyage)


(i)

We dived through the broken
windows of our eyes
and peeked at canoes on blue beds
of seal-lipped rivers

making their quiet journey
to Eswatini, where a river carried
on its emerald-blue back
sun-sprayed and baked water

between baobab tree trunk walls
down jagged backs
on a stretch of Grand Canyon's trench,

wagons of water pulling us
between mountains and wall
cracks of our broken selves
watery as the railed bed, on which we rode.

Angled dents and soft particles
nibbled off love's hard
skin on canyon walls stiff as the road
climbing to the firmament.

(ii)

That lone star in a jagged sky
waits to stroke our heads,
as we pop out of deep rock-flowered
trenches, twisting wiggles
of dust, as we creep out

of a wall's spine breaking
twigs of particles we carry,
as withered leaves and ribbons
of rock shred off, petals
flying and hanging in the wind.

That baby whimpering moon
amid swaying anthers
of stars riding through a desert of sky

settles on a lake flipping
back shouldered shadows at us
with bawling lips spitting out
silver flowers of rain,

as a large-mouthed sky yawns out
a rainbow to roof us,
when we continue to climb to the firmament

on the high-perched banks
of crawling rhododendron
burning the cloudy gray ashes of our love
into a soot of clouds weaving us
into a garden of Neptune.

(iii)

I know why love is a hearth's glow
on the heightened crown
of a tall tree, its leaves rock slabs

denting a canyon's rising back
with steps to catch our toes,
as we climb with roasted fingers.

Don't you see how pimpled
and bumpy love's skin
spins on a canyon back
scratching us with the flamy eyes

of a hawk, while these shredded slabs
sitting on each other
with the ladder steps of feathers
on a flamingo back climb us

with a swan's flapping swell
on slippery shoulders flapping wings
of wind, as a storm of breath

pushes us over the lid
of a heaven-bound trench tossing us
into air with its earthenware bubble.

(iv)

Leaves of finches squeak
and tumble down on us
with broken brittle beaks of dry leaves,

every curve a preened bird
arching to climb out
with red crab hands gripping
like hammer-driven nails
oozing with thorns and paws of rust.

Is this how crusts of rock
Collapse off canyon walls to point
a finger at love flipped over
and abandoned in its free fall

touching down on a priest's tray,
a rising spear of a laceleaf
standing by candle's flame.