Cattle Egret's Full Breakfast Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Cattle Egret's Full Breakfast

(i)

The sun's daffodil
and beaming gold

have jumped down
again to plant
bugs into a cow's moo.

The shepherd walks
off quietly, leaving
the cow to a stroking
breezy wind

and a tall sauntering
bird from a swamp.

Glazed with mud
holding legs
with tight galoshes
of slimy water,

and stockings of sludge
and mud,
the bird lands and waddles
through bushy fur

on the cow's mountain
of a back for late breakfast
under a sharp sun,

but only wends
and plods its way
with clouded eyes, finding

no chirp, no creep
to peck off and gulp down.

(ii)

Bawling at the shepherd
with stringed chatters

and a throated jerky song
amid squawks
and whistling winds,

the egret flies off
to the expanding desert
and wilderness
of its roost, a swamp

emptied off all morsels
of food by brothers
he'd left behind
to sip sun and breeze.

The spear-hurled tornado
of a chattering rage
swoops him high up

the sky to throw
glances across a widening
field until he spots

the castle of a cedar elms tree
waving flowers and seeds,
the sharpest dish
for the bird's breakfast.

Carried off
by the creamy sun
and stars
off the cattle egret's wings,

I gallop off,
stepping out
of my veranda with a loud
ringing message

to the egret in sun-rayed
wings wrapped
in a halo's stars:

(iii)

Cattle egret O egret,
jump down. Dive in to save
your friend the cow
mooing with pinching,

pricking needles,
the shepherd
wearing a mangled face

full of frogs,
as he points at
his cow in a fire of wiggles
and flamy pain.

As the egret flaps
its wings
like a landing sun, the cow
rises to its feet,

stretching out its back
bristling with starry bugs
to a birdy
drumming mouth,

the cows back
a tom-tom
for the bird's full breakfast.