Most declarations of faith or purpose claim the centre of things. Dave Bonta's "Barakah" does the opposite. Its speaker keeps choosing the edge: the roadside, the herald, the insect, the embarrassed. The title is an Arabic word for blessing or spiritual grace, and the poem seems to suggest that grace is found among the overlooked rather than the honoured. That is my reading of the title, since the poem never mentions blessing directly. It acts out a blessing by saying whom it stands beside.
The structure helps. The poem is in free verse with no rhyme and no regular beat, so it sounds like a person talking quietly. The stanzas grow as they go, from one line to two, then three, three, and four, as if a modest statement were gathering company. The opening line, "I am for the roadside rather than the road," works like a motto. Its repeated *r* and *d* sounds make it easy to remember. A road is for getting somewhere. A roadside is where things simply live, among weeds, gravel and people waiting. The second stanza makes the same choice again, preferring "the one who announces / rather than the one who is announced." The speaker would rather be the herald than the king, the one who points beyond himself.
The best image comes next: "In the middle of a ballet, I am the fly / rubbing its hind legs together / on the collar of a coat." A ballet stands for grace, discipline and attention, and the speaker chooses to be the least graceful presence in the room. The fly is funny, and it is also precise. Rubbing its legs is a tiny, self-absorbed ritual that has nothing to do with the dancers. The coat collar is a small, ordinary place where nobody is looking. The image is humble, but it is not defeated. The fly is alive and busy, and it is simply there, whatever the dancers are doing.
The prepositions change in a way that is easy to miss. The speaker is "for" the roadside, then "a friend to" certain people, then "with" others. The relationship moves from preference to friendship to shared presence. The people are defined by emotional mismatch: those "who curse / when they're happy / & sing when they're sad." They don't express feelings in the expected way. The ampersand, a casual shorthand, makes the line feel jotted down rather than polished, which suits the subject. These people are awkward and unperformed, and their feelings come out sideways.
The final stanza is the most vivid and the most critical. "Someone places a hand / like a hot iron on some starched bible." The simile borrows from laundry. Starch makes cloth stiff and respectable, and a hot iron presses it flat. Together they suggest religion that has been flattened into formality, with the oath-taker's hand pressing down like a tool. The word "some" in "some starched bible" has a faint shrug in it, as though the speaker is unimpressed by the pomp. The speaker sides instead with "those who blush / & stare at their feet." Blushing is an involuntary, honest reaction, and it shows a conscience at work. Staring at your feet means looking down, away from the show. The poem ends on lowered eyes.
Nothing in the poem is shouted. It is a series of small allegiances, and the humour of the fly and the starched Bible keeps it from sounding sanctimonious. The speaker never claims to be holy, only to stand with the embarrassed and the unnoticed. I would argue that this is the poem's real subject: blessing is not handed down from a pulpit or a stage but found in the awkward, honest gestures of ordinary people. The poem also practises what it prefers. It is short and plain, and it stays near the edge of the page the way its speaker stays near the edge of the road.