Etched Two Stars Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(Tribute to two stars on an original flag)

(i)

Ebbing off
from the contours
of high seas,
we drift on and on,

cliffs of waves
flattening out into
rougher ridges of water.

We stagger along
over holes
in a sloped hilly sea,

turning the world
into a fat animal
with an owl's watery eyes
piercing us

with arrows of a peek
burning us
in a flamy trajectory.

The stormy-faced sailor
seeing no felloe
between
handles of a steering wheel,

as we bounce
on swollen rough waters

until we're pulled
by thick ropes of water.
Rolling over soft
arms of strong waves,

gliding through
wings of hard waters
flapped by
puffs and howling winds.

(ii)

Bouncing on
as their ripples
ride back
to us buried in holes
of ice-filled fear

in a night of gales
and heavy woolen threads
of rain drops.

We drift onward
staggering,
our ship a falling tree
off its roots
still buried deep under
in sticky clayey silt.

Bushes of splashed
waters, jump up
and hang down on us,
as our ship
drifts through

curled hurled drizzles
from the edges
of a storm wave
that rose with a mountain
of haze and mist.

(iii)

How many tall waves
have we not
cut through, O folks
holding on

to rising poles
of courage
cracking and breaking
with our crumbling steel
and steam,

our ship's broken bones
and rags of muscles
in soot
from dawn's dark-gray ashes..

Its past 3 am
on a glazed plain
of sea,

but we've been
sailing through mounds
broken off higher waves
under dwindling
sprinkled stars.

(iv)

Folks, night at dawn
wears a thick blanket,
only two etched stars

flapping butterfly
spinning wheels
twinkling brightly on this shore
of our arrival,

each an etched star
on the rocky sky
steering
a tattooed set of faces
in their separate

flayed cabins
full of moths and bees
fitting in fleeting feats
into a two-toned hue
of separate folks,

each singing songs
of canary and nightingale
to spell out
two separate families,
each in its nest,

two folks
from a wrecked ship
with two worlds

that have always seen
more light
in their separate cabins
that have
spun brightest colors
in their two separate camps
for light-year centuries.