July 2016
Uche Ogbuji
uche@ogbuji.net
uche@ogbuji.net
I was born in Calabar, Nigeria and lived, among other places, in Egypt and England before settling near Boulder, Colorado with my wife and four children. I'm a computer engineer by trade, but poetry is my passion. My chapbook, Ndewo, Colorado is a Colorado Book Award Winner. In my spare time I snowboard, coach and play soccer, and train in American Kenpo. I am also an editor at Kin Poetry Journal. A selection of my poems was included in the Best New African Poets 2015 anthology.
Mountain Summer
The woman and child in bathing suits
Trudge, plough, step high over dunes,
Crunch ice for footing in measured stride.
Turning about, they leap on the saucer and fly
Merrily down pitted slopes into raptures,
Finding their break against banking snow…
Mountain winter defies the order,
Denies the bonding of elements.
Wooded snow and falling wind
Force repentance through birdsong.
Unwaning sun razes gooseflesh,
Floods snow, and drowns the senses,
Pitched in broken bottle rainbow battle
With trenchant ice-cold mountain streams.
Turning about, this pair flies to the patronage
Of local rebel ethers.
Settling into the mountain's lap
They bask in untimely solstice.
Measuring with our watches,
We shun the whim of Mother Earth.
Shattering sense to our goggling eyes,
She reminds us of her stubborn clout.
-First published in ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum
©2016 Uche Ogbuji
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF