That Fire Up There Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(a myth of snowflakes)

(i)

Round edges of clouds
pile up into faces,
oak and birch sticking out
beaming foreheads

for a fire to last, as maple
logs of clouds wait
to thicken the tinder
for the fire gods are making.

The day has been
piercing-cold, needles
giving way
to fleeing flames across
a forest of air
with bamboo bushes.

Elephant grass stems
of stratus clouds
rise behind rolling cream logs
for the gods' bonfire.

They must keep warm,
as they bask
to hurl off to the world
a warmer air.

All brown birds of clouds
fly off, leaving no feather,
all specks gone,
as flint bushes close up.

A smooth gray lawn
of air on a stretchy in flat carpet
drifts noiselessly,
trimmed to its edges.

Levels out. Makes a bed,
a queen yet to storm
into her cream chamber.
Air is held together
by close tightened stitches.

Air floats, weaves gray
cotton balls to shove
at the gate to the muted fire
of a fleeing cloud.

Cream balls sail across,
and stand. Wrestle among
themselves and drift.

Bundles of clouds
thawed by stillness melt
into a woolen blanket
on the king's wheeled bed.

But a stratus curtain
closes the door
to the drifting royal chamber,
leaving air to build
a giant graphite mountain.

The sky, a hanging hollow
over a dome, folds
over into a cream sheet.

(ii)

White folds roll over
air's shifting dome
with sheets for a bed.

But daisy is funneled
into the folds
and clustered
into white freezing birds.

I told you a bonfire
hiding high above
amid the gods was flaming

in smoldering coals
and burning piths
you could not see,

sky's heavy cream blanket
covering up the fire
the gods have been making.

(iii)

The fire is now
spitting out swollen
threads
of feather smoke.

The fire quietly coughs
out thick bamboo
chaff to drop
with thicker snow flakes
from birch and oak tinder,

as it drizzles through
a bonfire of tinder
you cannot see,

as it sits, leaning
in the center
of basking gods spitting
out threads of snowflakes.