Voices of the Nile

Where dawn first traced the contours of clay,
And time unfurled its long, deliberate thread,
Africa woke, in gold and crimson day,
With voices rising where the past had bled.

The fathers bled through the hush of Niles
Till the Egyptian obelisks rose forth
In Mandela’s might atop whispering ancient voices
In Kilimanjaro’s breath where forth their words

Have stayed. Thus the blessing of Achebe littered
The earth, and legends stay of Kwame and Soyinka
And Fela(s), rhyming it to beats, till each grain holds
Out this power in grace and pride, and the earth see
The tribal paths walked in life and death, till the stars
Remember these sacred places and the drums resound
In marrow-deep refrain, calling forth tomorrow
From ancestral flame, where tongues —a monument—
Speak dreams once carved in drought and rain.

The sculptor’s hand, the weaver’s deft,
Ashanti gold and Berber desert lore—
A heritage divine forged in bounds,
Its prints, a nation’s open doors.
A woman carves this mark on her back.

O pride that stirs where spirit meets the land,
We rise, in rhythm, ritual, and market song—
We stand, alive, resilient, ancient, and bold,
We stamp, strong, warmed, willed and tough,

O yee spirits of the arts, warm on the lips
Of beating hearts, we will the births
Of breathing fathers that stay us be,
That sons or fathers, our verse be one,
That ancient or modern, our myths be cast,
That fallen or standing, our heart stay one
In the million faces and billion births,
Rising onwards in glorious glow—
O sovereign soul, O living work of art.