Trumpet's Tern Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I lean over the window
to sip a bit of daylight,
driven out
from my room by a sky
of many shades.

Blow into an elephant's
trumpet or that
of a gale rushing
through tree hollows?

Air's wings trumpet, hiss
with the wind,
as it races through
empty barrels
yawning by a trash can.

The trumpet rises
into the tree again,
hissing
with the birds. Mewling
with the moments
cutting through dancing
stems and vines.

(ii)

How wind has blown
into a trumpet
all morning, birds whistling
and chirruping quietly
in the trees. How puffs

have cackled through
dry leaves, as gleaming
leaves rattle, no snake
sneaking through.

But morning's sharp
choirmaster,
the garrulous trumpet,
swallows snarls
and growls, as birds
quietly whisper

in their world perched
high up on a whispering
tree building towers
of voices rising through

tree branch ladders
to melt in air's silver
and cream roofs,
clouds hanging
from a caved devouring sky.

(iii)

Wind in the tree snorts,
buzzes. Wind,
the only animal
climbing a tree,
flying in the air to melt
into air under sky's
drifting ceiling.

With the wind
Whispering on
through
the swaying leaves,
moments crackle,

chirp and caw,
but I see
no bird hanging out,
unclothed by its nest.

Too many mouths
growling, mewling, clucking,
squeaking and mooing
in the dragged wind.

Too many to tag
a voice
to its throat.
And I see no wings.

No cats, no dogs,
no elephant
trumpeting the curled
swaying trumpet
of a trunk
held out beneath
its brows, as it ambles.

Too many voices
to pull out one
as the hiding animal
buzzing, whispering
or chirping.

The only animal
a trumpet
in the wind's hands

blasting through
hollows
of a full-mouthed
morning clicking

and croaking through
half-dry hanging leaves.

(iv)

In the morning's
pulling petrichor,
I walk
out to the balcony,
a strayed
shivering bird

smelling the hearth
in me as it trots
up to me,
and I roll out

the red carpet
for a morning trumpet's tern.