Day And Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Below a bulb-lit sky of a ceiling,
from which stars and comets stick out
eyes in swelling flashes and drifts,
flailing rises and shifts to the edge of ledgers.

Eclipse is born in a hollow's manger,
whimpering through tree branches
of linen on hangers, a room tightening itself
into a shadow from a wall's cliff.

Night blooms in the sun. Sun explodes
into the rolling soot of a deep hearth.
Why're we clothed in bright and dim
shirts as we scale up life's translucent ladder?

(ii)

It's just the sun's sword of a ray
that splits the mountain in two,
shadows behind down the valley, every crack
and hole beaming with night.

Cotton flakes and moths of light
up the sinking crown flipping
over comets and volcano mouths of bright
splashes never reaching night-drowned feet.

We're always hidden cubbyholes, seeing
only light on the swirling ceiling above,
our borehole beneath our brow,
the only light we do not see and grab.