Umpire Of Night Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A whistle is umpire
of a river of night, silence
the only player
dribbling past sleepers,

the world frozen
into deep snores digging
deeper to the crust
of a flowing floating bed.

The quiet twitter
of wings flapped in mumbles
tones a night
on its course to a crash

when sky rumbles
and a night-jar neighbor
stamps a door
to its clipping frame
with a cutting thunder clap.

(ii)

Who's the sculpted frame
out there, if not
a piece of loneliness,
a broad-chested splash of a man
taller than a sky-scraping tree,

whose birds have joined
crickets to pierce
silky moments with swords
that poke the sky
for a sizzling leakage,

drizzles flying silver flags
across an unfolding screen
of exclamation marks,
knot-headed strings of rain
tying up earth with sky.

(iii)

The umpire returns
after dwindling rattles
have paused
in a whistling train

of silence with no bumping
wagons - no crackle,

when a hearth of sky
has pulled out its glowing tinder
to seat a scarlet cloud
pushing its flames for a touchdown

with dawn bouncing in springs
swayed in a gale
to swoosh out arms and wings

for the roaring dawn
that flies and swims silently
until my bed's deck

spreads out a silent carpet
of whistles and sizzles
putting the world on the lips
of a gray parrot

leaking with night-crammed
sizzles and whistles
when night's silent umpire is teacher.