Shadows In A Lake Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

How have crickets and grasshoppers
breathed in their quiet shadows,
as they dodge falling leaves and flowers

and spates of strong rattling wind
all croaky night, gates still opening to dawn.

With little steam, early birdsong
drifts the hour into a brighter sky
still wearing pewter and flint shades.

Early cocks crow out the sun
still in its shell, crawling out slowly
from its deep tunnel
of taupe and umber ambling sheets
unfolding torn parts of the sky.

(ii)

Billowing flames of gold ooze
light from a trajectory of hollowed-out space.
They're slanted and straight walls
of sky pumping out

beige and silver rays of sun
to fall in showers
and rotated wings of sprayed light.

The sun rays dangle and flip
over a sheet of blue oval mirror
capturing fidgety trees,

hills shaking their waists down
the flattened-out bottom of a bowl.

Dark flecks fleeting on and off
are hurled off by darters
and swaying frolicking sparrows.

In the lake a mountain
sits on all hills,

each hill smashing the other
into dragged-out ridges
crushing every shrub and undergrowth
shorter than them.