At fifty-three, your head anointed to the bone,
prayer-beads worn down to gallstones
and two bung knees from the pilgrimage . . .
still you cannot see Him in the scrimmage
of heavenly bodies. The chorus with feeling goes:
There’s no enlightenment for Akho!

When the fire engulfed the city
the pigeons sheered into the safety
of the air while the rats made such a sound.
No lesson there. Try, Akho, to be profounder:
Fools do fear their own demise
and (so I’ve heard) their own birth do the wise.

Trust not the talk of the apostate:
it’s a drumroll in a desolate place.
All your done nights converge from afar
and like blindmen form a contiguous dark.
Take heed Akho: you can’t with a look
winnow the allspice. Nor can you cook.

Akho you are incorrigible,
worshipping as many gods as sea pebbles
and stripping at the first sight of water.
One man’s self-baptism, another’s aborted
drown-attempt. No one was watching, thankfully:
the upside to an o’erworked monodeity.