When trust is broken, sorry means nothing,A hollow echo in the chambers of the heart.Like the ancient cocoa uprooted, its roots undone,Promises decay, drifting as dust in harmattan winds.
The griots sang of trust once—a covenant,
Not mere words, but the weight of rain upon the earth.
In our veins flows the Nile and the Niger,
Rivers that whispered secrets to our ancestors,
Bound in truth, unyielding to the tides.
But now, in the clang of metal and the hum of machines,
Our word, our bond, is frail as spider silk.
What is an apology to a shattered mirror,
Where every shard reflects betrayal’s cruel face?
Oh, children of Africa’s vast sunlit plains,
And heirs to the struggle on America’s scarred streets,
Remember: trust is not a garment to be sewn anew;
It is the unbroken fabric of soul and sinew,
Woven through fire, preserved in the songs of time.
In the village square, elders warned us:
“Words without action are smoke without fire.”
Yet in the West’s neon glare, sorry is currency,
Cheaply spent, quickly forgotten, without redemption.
So we look to the wisdom of the drumbeat,
Its steady rhythm teaching patience and vigilance.
We turn to the spirit of Sango,
To retrieve what was lost and forge anew.
Not with sorry, but with deeds, with truth,
With hands that build instead of break.
When trust is broken, the soil cries out,
The ancestors weep beneath the iroko tree.
Let us mend the breach, not with hollow words,
But with justice, integrity, and love profound.
For this generation and those yet to come,
Know this: trust, like freedom, must be earned.
And when it stands tall, unshaken as Kilimanjaro,
No sorry will ever be needed again.
By : Jide Adesina
Extract from Tales of Destiny
December, 2024
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