Standing And Lying Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Throughout the pearl
and powder days,
the hill's grasses raise
their hands to wave

at the world, telling
the birds flying
through breezes we stand
planted into our soles,

as mooing cows
pop up across the hillside
and melt into
their amble down the valleys.

With the rains,
the tall grasses gallop
uphill to touch
a sky's tail,

but still stand firm again
by shrubby trees
in shamrock gowns
shading grasses
with floating widening shadows.

(ii)

Throughout the cyan
and light blue days,
shepherds pedal creeping
grasses with baaing sheep,
leaving standing stalks,

their arms crossed
in whirring breezes
to plant their feet and legs
deep below grasses
always standing tall,

as buzzing bees and beetles
fleet in sparks
amid stems on legs always
sinking their roots deep.

But after a storm of lances
and machetes falling
from ropy arms

to chop off hay
and whizzing grasses
for whining
and snorting horses

breathing in and out
yearlings and fillies,
all strolling out
to come back, standing
and planted.

But stalks and stems
all lying and sleeping
with the crawling life
of weeds spin air
on unclothed earth.

The hill no longer stands,
as hunter and farmer
dive in and out

of hollow air, no weaves
and braids of grasses
whirring across,

as bales of grass lying
in tapered cylinders
and funnels
like rock and dead cattle.