Crawl Bagworm Crawl Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I saw you crawling
close to the door
panel hinge,
as you slowed down,

but kept on
creeping in a snail's
pace towards
your hinge's chateau.

Drag along
the boulder weighing
down on your
feet. Pull off the tether
holding you
to the planted beam,

the tree trunk
too heavy for you to pull,
as your inched pace
carries you no faster
than a slug.

Bagworm, your
wheels are punctured,
as walk slower
than a dwarf sea horse.

Your oyster
and mussel pace carries
you no further
than your brow,

your feet completely
out of steam,

as you need
not only gasoline,
but diesel
to fly you with peregrine
falcon wings

to your home a few
inches off
at the door panel's hinge
staying still.

(ii)

Now, I see you
putting on golden
eagle wings
to cruise home
in a turbo
engine, but you still fly

too slowly
to reach home,
as you mark
time on the same spot.

Let me hurl
at you the lighter
wings of a white-
throated needletail,
so you may land
at home
before nightfall,

as you crawl down
this wall
to your home
light years off in Eris,
your castle
at a door panel's hinge.
Bagworm, in spite
of my eyes push
and pull,
as they tug you on,

you stay planted
into deep earth
on the cream wall you're
crawling down,

but covering not even
a millimeter
of your journey
down to Door Hinge Square,

everybody waiting
for you until nightfall
thickens into
a sable shade growing
into onyx curtains
of a pitch night,

as you creep
like somebody pulling
sandbags in his
broken feet, and I wonder

if you'll close up
to home's hearth
to heat you up, as it's
freezing
on that wall.

But as I fear for you,
you creep
even slower, grinding
yourself to a taupe
dot stop on the wall,

you a bagworm's standstill,
when eyes pull
and push you with a bulldozer's
force, but you stay

on the spot held down
by deep fig
and baobab roots gripping
deep earth on the wall
like a palm crab.