Diem Okoye
Diem Okoye is a writer and teacher whose work has appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review, Reckoning, Liber Review and other literary journals. She was awarded second place in the Blue Mesa Review Spring 2025 Contest Issue and was nominated for the 2024 Dwarf Stars Award for speculative poetry. In addition to her writing, she works as a copy editor. She lives with two German Shepherds and two neurotic cats.
Sunlight on the hills
My father said the tea tasted different back in the highlands
not like the city’s packaged leaves,
steeped in hurry. Between tea and morning light,
there is warmth spreading through the old cups.
Behind the house, past the apple trees,
near the mountain’s edge
on the way to the first harvest before noon,
it was part of the land there, the last touch of what
had been a slow beginning—leaves dried under the sun,
hands careful in their plucking.
Tea does not taste bad, he insisted
context was everything: the sunlight on the hills,
the patience in the brewing, the richness
steeped in each sip.
Really, tea was never bad unless
it was someplace it did not belong—
packaged into vending machines, drowned in sugar,
or made by hands that never knew its journey.
In those cases, tea was not the savoring of a moment.
It was a sign that some things take time to be enjoyed.