Knitting Motherly Sky Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(remembering a day of continuous snow)

(i)

Snow flakes
drip and dance
in shivering
fleeting steps.

Tapping and foot-
slogging
in mid-air across
floating alleys.

Jamming
in a labyrinth
of cream air street
intersections,

as they brush
swinging elastic
carpets,

and heavier
nylon rugs
stretched out
for more falling bodies

from mother sky
on her knitting
and crocheting machine.

Air is pulled
back and forth,
and up
and down
like a white large-
breath accordion,

as white cashmere
yarns
build up piles
of shrugged

and brushed
thick woolen threads,
as they climb down
to earth's floor.

(ii)

Daisy air turning pearl
outside, light white-
gloved hands

knit cream wool
into booties
and stockinette fabric
for larger linen

only grasshopping
flying goblins
wear, as they float

with hovering
air-bleached
grasshoppers

sinking slowly
down a cotton barrel
of hollowed-out air
drowning,

sinking and cascading
through
an emerald and taupe
mattress of a lawn.

Lying on its belly,
as mother knitting sky
hurls down
a thick white coat

of herringbone
lace rib
to cover infant earth,

as it lies in chills
on an ice bed
of frozen
rock and loam.

Heavily blanketed
in white
layers of wool,

as it awaits sun
to fling out
its rayed net
of heat to thaw earth

into the frolicking
infant
it was before
sky knitted a cashmere

pullover of snow
to cover
its green bare chest
of grass

and ribs of creeping
tree roots

that keep crawling earth
standing
on planted studded
shoes held down
by a flaming earth's mantle.