Snare Of Sun Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Sun, what cotton
of your rays lands
on sea's skin, rolled-out
waters stretched

to a level carpet
on an unpimpled
marbled surface,
quiet sheets of a plain.

The cream silvery
drifting air flips out
white pelican
and condor wings
of your elastic rays

to pull and push
the slow-rolling day
through, on lightning
wheels following
trails of a bolide

with albatross wing
flaps steered
by a far-flung star
the sun must reach.

(ii)

Sun, spin your full
stretched-out reach:

are these your
fingers pulled out
into tightly-stitched
vanes and close barbs
and afterfeathers
pulling sea waters?

The fisherman
paddles shadows
of your rays
and brushing palms

on smooth films
of sea stretching out
fern and mint
fibrous squiggles

and flat-woven nylon
sheets of water
breathing out no foam,
no bubbles, no furls

as you hurl off gold
and moonstones
to float beneath
the fisherman's canoe.

and beams of your
feathery piercing reach,
as you wave lightly
far-flung cutting
spinning lances of rays.

(iii)

But a painter now
sprays the sky
with thickening smoke

and mist; and thin arrows
and threads
of drizzles now weave

the sea into jagged edges,
as creeping
waves swell into mounds
and hillocks.

Fisherman, swing
round your canoe
for a quick lightning ride

back home before
a roaring wind
jumps in to swallow
you with clawed fingers

lifting your canoe
into a whale-mouthed
pouncing storm wave.