May 25, 2026

by OSAHON OKA

The Awakening of Faith

Dark priest of the oblong god,

Dark flame of the dark flower 

Dance and waver anew. 

Your stomata is the face of unknowing; 

The bland mask.

When will your motion cease 

To stomach us, our eyelids 

Like oil lantern shutters

In the din of night? 

You have awakened in us 

The gleam of surfaces 

That look out of the city with longing; 

You have awakened us.

*

The Pale Fathers

Oh dance pale veils of fathers,

Your feet are in the dead wings of black butterflies, 

The smoke aching in the arches, 

The fifth hour in shambles. 

Ring the hoes through the light, 

Comb for the web these impatient fingers of ours 

Have tangled in the air; 

That sweet swarm of joy. 

Through the fog your hosanna rings

And our ears are pressed to the page 

Where your honey lives unplucked, 

An anvil in its hand and a white molten  shape:

Your children being moulded 

Into your grand image of mirrors, 

Of a play at invention: aping the dance, 

Faking your clutching of the life already at your feet; 

Pretending to be your own fathers.

*

Bethlehem 

Three mighty kings of a dark brooding essence, 

Their blades bared before the light, 

Have come to the page, 

Their crowns asunder, their voices 

Pressed against the loudness of the pencil 

That shaped their deity from the lead. 

They stood astride their mounts, 

Tasted the bland air on their tongue 

And grew eager to dance the great dance. 

So they came, three of them came 

And placed wood, iron and fire

On the messiah’s side; 

There between his virgin ribs, 

Their mighty gift hung loose on the cross. 

There their mighty wound fed the thirst 

That had crept with them 

To the very crib of God 

And wept.

Its flame trembled with a motionless grace; 

Its dance was not with the wind 

But with the thing on the page 

And with that kind of kinship, 

Who cared for the thieves?