Undulations Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

His world for a while
was a tight-lipped
wilderness dissolving

into bleached air,
no mouth, no foot,

but hands on chests
when visiting elders joined
him for low mumbles

of orations devoured
by a whispering
babbling stream
zigzagging through pine trees,

birds voices chopped off
by thunders that quickly
dissolved into the undulating songs

of drizzles and jerky feats
of downpours gulped down
by whispering
and sizzling roofs.

The noisy corrugated umbrellas
and piked hats on the heads
of cottages switched gears

into a dead valley with no hum,
but a hanging whisper
stitched to a shooed whistle

that found no anchor
in a choked dragged buzz.

Thin-feathered winds
ground into a thin whizz
and melting mutters of leaves
starved of afternoon breezes.

(ii)

Last week his yard, all play,
was full of giggles
and cackles and screams,

as the sun spun and wove
rays and shadows,
steering or following them.

The children ran, hurtled
and slithered through
shaved hedges, bumping

into each other, yelling
for more space
for a feat of dive or jump.

As others applauded,
and more jeered
with exploded volcanos

from those small ones croaking
and chirping children,
hiding as frogs and crickets.

But threads of sneaking swifts
only sewed thin silk fabric
of a sky hanging on cobwebs,

their spiders visiting mouthless
veils of latticed clouds,
their cracks tunneling only silence
and no loud-mouthed rain.

How a world rides through
whispers and mutters
with rumbling wheels
shot at an ashy air sitting only
in the cauldron of hot children,

an undulating landscape
of sharp piercing voices
and low dulling broken-toothed drums.