3 by Uche Ogbuji

 

 

Spark and Story

 

The story is made of the spark.

The story is made of the spark off the end of the flame.

The story is made of the tongue which extends from the flame on whose end the story alights.

The story is made of the dance of the tongue and the dance undertaken to stretch the oven embrace of that tongue's fire.

The story is made of the cry with the dance, the cry with the yip at the end or the cry all apart from the dance with a tear like the splash like a spark off a tongue of the wave of a swell that threatens the fire and light,

But not the story.

The story grows from the cry with the tear or the yip, with splash or with spark, with the flame or the dark, to the light then the dark of the following night where the fire makes dance and the flame makes a tongue makes a spark makes the story again,

Revenant and relevant to the heat and the dark and the cry towards the story, the feet on the earth, and the fingers towards fire, away from the dark, between which the beat, the dance of the story and its very spark.

 

 

Earned Turns

 

Breaths in grateful gasps

Mark my pilgrimage upslope;

Weight of equipment,

Weight of anticipation

Up next the gold hill down-rush.

 

 

Cow Catchers

                Song for Alan and Issa

 

Cows of the far side brand

Have eased themselves right in

With much more stealth than one'd expect

They've bobbed on morning's lull effect,

Some barbed wire gap inviting.

 

Didn't they follow shared speech

And Goodtimes leading song?

Above his wagging head the ridge

Broke out with its sudden knowledge

More heads had come along.

 

All through Gunny County

Still green the baled-up hay

We hardly thought it cruel betrayal

Of morning craft, the eastward hail,

To drum the cows away.