Poetry by K.H.Ontai

Firefly

I always believed in you,
You asked about my firefly collection,
Sitting on the shelf.
And I told you quietly,
That I could hear them breathe.
Illuminating the shadows in my room,
Pulsating in rhythm to the beat,
Of your heart I held so,
Just so, in my hands.
You said forever.
I replied, always.
At dawn, I sat at your side,
As you dreamt a dreamer’s dream.
Free from the abscess of our love,
And you never told me why.

A sole firefly remained,
Looking down on this scene.
The glow, fading in twilight,
And as it spiraled to join its dead,
Your heart turned in my hands,
And I awoke alone.
The bed still warm,
And the room now dark.

Life below God

Mother promised,
We are children of God,
As she hooked a golden cross,
Around my neck.
Her faith enveloping me after birth,
Holding me when I shivered.
As a child, I reveled in this.
Nightly, stargazing,
I searched for God.
For mother said,
He was watching.

My mother promised,
That life held only good,
And the evil I thought existed
Was merely a figment,
Of a child,
And an ever growing nightmare
We only come to realize as adults.

Didn’t he know I knew no evil,
As he crept silently into this dreamscape.
Could he not see,
From his vantage point,
The gold cross I wore,
Recording his sin.

My mother promised,
This too shall pass.
But since, I dare not move.
That night I unfastened the cross,
And laid it on the nightstand.

Often, as the stars rise at night,
I turn my gaze to the earth.
Knowing now the betrayal of men
Is preferable to that of God.

K. H. Ontai is a M.A. student of English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her first play, entitled Waiting for a King, is in the process of publication and production. She works for a local non-profit, the Pacific American Foundation, as an editor/writer. Ontai graduated from the Kamehameha Schools in 2001 and then received her B.A. in English from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in 2005.

Copyright 2007, K.H. Ontai ©. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.