Arc On A River Bank Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

It's been windy,
every flying leaf
a stretching neck
like this
floating silhouette.

A quiet arc arching
with each drifting gust.
A frozen arc
snaking its neck

into the double arc
of a heron's neck.

It's been breezy,
a dark shadow - melted
into grasses - creeping
to the still mouth

of a heron
gulping down every chirp
and every crawl
up to a wailing rail,

whose chicks have melted
down the throat
of a gray tuxedo
flapping wings lighter
than a zephyr.


(ii)

Under the cream wings
of a sprayed sun
hurling over cutting rays,

the lurking arc of a heron
is king crowned
by the same sun
that blinds a rat to creep
into its fork,

a nib-tipped mouth
writing letters
to gods in the grasses
for more food

without squawks or chatters,
but the rolled-out silence,
when a bird's stemmy legs
lurks on webbed floppies
of heron the champion.

Until it stumbles
and flips over
under the cruising storm
of a lurching muzzle,

a fox the fleeing lightning
that doesn't return soon
when the sky
stretches itself out

into a rumbling thunder
blowing another loud trumpet
for the arc on a river bank.