Myth Of An Umbrella Mountain Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The mountain rises, rises,
flipping out outer ribs,
hand-stretching rocks creeping
fingers of eroded ridges,

on which mist-clothed cows
moo as they graze,
nibbling off soft winds to brew storm.

Heavily pimpled with
rooted cobble stones and rocks
and pegged stones

sitting on stools, spike tips
spinning in the wind,
a goddess nestles within.

(ii)

The evening winds whistle
and sizzle, etching out a square
eastern rock,

a mounted cylinder block
that rumbles in a storm.

A sweeping shoveling gale
scoops out a dune-like
hunch back rising like a dromedary

at the foot of the mountain
stretching out
a fat arm curving to bulge
a biceps knot,

an umbrella's handle,
which an avatar flips open
in a typhoon, a door

for the goddess to storm out
as a slender rock
on the mountain's crown

rising into a ferrule,
from which an eagle-hawk
takes off every morning.