Burning Grasses Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Tall grasses
and reeds
burn,
breathing out
no smoke.

Leaving no
glowing coals
at their roots
to smother
them into ashes.

Tall stalks
waving stretched
pinnate leaves
burn,

breathing out
no mist.

(ii)

Tall grasses
burn,
no hidden hearth
churning
tinder in a glow

to chop them
off their roots.

Vines too
wriggle their way
up air
in the flames,

but stretch out
their slithering,
creeping

necks and tails
unbitten
by fire's teeth.

(iii)

I see only
rising flames,

but catch
no glowing fire
of red hibiscus,

no burbling blaze
of flame lilies,
a bush
of fire ginger

flung far
off behind
collapsing creeks.

(iv)

Tall dry grasses
burn
sneezing out
no crackles,

firing off
no fireballs
to float
and swim

through thin
flint films
of wallowing air.

Tall grasses
rise in flames,

the only match stick
igniting them

distant goldenrod
clouds blazing
on the horizon.