Grace Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I climb stiff ladders
on an arched
twisted and broken
rock,

rattling cobblestones
of my sins
mauling
my chapped soles.

Like the lotus
in a swamp overnight,
I'm ground
by the grindstone
of my death

into an ashy phoenix
rolling off
from a deep cave
of night
that sank into a river
of bleaching snow,

an inkpot
spilled over a phoenix's
footsteps
to swallow all flames

of the burning
bird, leaving a lake
by the mountainside
of overgrown sins,

hills climbing hills
to land
into deep marshy
gorges in a glen.

Like a millipede
on a narrow stalk,
shall I tread
my path along a cliff

without falling off
sun's trajectory
into a chasm with no marsh?

(ii)

And if I rise up
like a sloth
from the grime
of weevilled wood

with no brick
to build me
up to a sun's tower,

let a breeze
push me over
into a deluge,

for I'm not rinsed clean
by the stormy streaks
of a typhoon
to enter God's funnel of grace,

the reedy nest
padded with silk
and cotton specks to nestle

me into the stroking
rainbow ridge
of tulip and hibiscus flowers,
a scarlet macaw
swallowing it
with its full bloom

to flap out a full-blown
rippled smile
of a bridezilla

to be married
to a bearded but young
crystal bouquet
of God's grace waving
starry flags of periwinkles.