Heir To Shadows Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I walk on a crawling skeleton
of me, an insect skipping
over my stretched bones
hidden in the smoldering
feathery coals of their shadows.

A falling leaf burns
in the dark silent glow,

its stretching shadow
wearing wind waves unwinged
with flying feathers

in dimming one-eyed coals
of the scampered-off
mountain, its shadow lingering
here beyond the there,

the mountain perched
on its own ribs broken
by the rolling sun
sliced and eaten, as it roller-skates
across a rising glen.

The deep valley warbles
with legs standing
on their shredded heads,

leaves and stems wearing
the shoes of their shadows.

Shadows thawed
and melted into each other
beyond boundaries,
where there're none.

(ii)

One mountain falls
on the other's shoulders
in the morning's cold shine
torn by flying shadows.

Birds devour their voices,
let wing sketches
draw swords off sheathes
above air and heir
to tree taking over a flying buzz

when bodies tiptoe buddies,
hills trampling rocks to flip
over into streams,
heads drowned bottom
faced up, legs folded up.

(iii)

I walk off, leaving my greater
third to lurk by a tree
swallowed by a sun's fire
burning off traces of me,

as I melt towards a song bird
in the ashes of whistling
stems and kneeling leaves
outpacing me in rising

flames of sun pushing forward
heads, legs cut off
by the interwoven stretching arms
of low sleeves of shrubs,
as the song bird sings to me:

Trailing shadow, outpacing
self. The world works
like shadows under sun

switching gears, as body
is interwoven with body,

boundaries melted into shadows
in a swelling etched-out dark glow.