Congolese Quest IV

Congolese IV
 
Champagne bubbles of oxygen
scented with mint  
send love letters for my lips to open  
to the kiss of vapor from heaven
Invisible angel of air teaches me to breathe again  
Cotton cirrus rows
are like clouds sunken to earth
or alpine powder
for kids to make snowmen
but the harvest needs little hands
because white ribbons not made of ice crystals
and play is an uncle with chocolate bars
who visits only at Christmas
So I tread on feet of clay
In the shoe prints of the old man
Like an upland gorilla surveying new territory
Having descended from the misty mountains
Into a river world of the lowlands
Where strange metal crawlers move like insects
So foreign to my eyes bathed in green