Hope Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Hope spins
inthe uppermost
tuft of aHyperion
tree's crown

carrying the grail
to pour Christ's
blood
into your mouth.

It drifts up
to a higher ceiling,
as you climb
closer to itin lace sky.

You grab hope's
crystal crown
on afirmly planted
faith tree

by clinging tightly
to balustrades
to the staircase
to the upmost
floor of your mansion,

an altar waiting
by a bedside of your bow
and earth-pinned
genuflection

to reach the padded
arms of God
dressed in a breeze

for the requiescat
that paves the way
for stars of calm skies
and unrippled
hidden-fibered seas,

the hard floor
of wind-swelled waters
Jesus walked.

(ii)

O Sea of Galilee,
roll out your carpet
for me, as I walk

on deep narrower waters
of streams infested
by snakes
that tighten and padlock
their widened fangs

because my faith
in Jesus opens every gate
of sea, every cave
of whirring waters,

when I walk
across sea and river and lake
drowning not even
my feet and legs,

my eyes planted by hope
into the spot
of my landing, as my legs
paddle hope's canoe
until a voyage
is cut off from my breath.

(iii)

How hope paddles
legs across hills and valleys
of sea, every mass
of waters from a storm wave

cut in two to allow
me passage, as I waddle
through waters.

My faith in the firmament
spins through foamy
waves and spume
as thick as blankety clouds
of sky, the firmament
laying its carpet across

mile-stretched expanding sea
swallowing the horizon
with swelled bouncing warbling
chopping waters.

(iv)

But I bow with storms
of faith in Jesus
to make me hope
with a catapulted eye
full of orison,

the only ship of a man
riding between
high cliffs of water.

When it is built
out of stones of bulk rock,
hope spins
the heavy club held firmly
by eyes' sturdy hands

splitting burly choppy waters
into passable corridors,
eared legs waddling
through low watery layers,

faith in the sea gulf
screaming on the shore across,
as I float in a bag of hope
with Christ's breath.