Poem by Wole Soyinka

Mandela Comes to Leah

«No» he said, «Freedom is never conditioned»
And shackles clamped on the veteran of Robben Island.

«No» she said, «Knowledge permits no exclusion» -
Scarred, but unscared, the face of the Maid of Pakistan.

«No» she said, «Faith is not on compulsion» -
A captive voice, demure but defiant in Dapchi,
Her torch undimmed in the den of zealots.

Thus, across time, testamentary voice recurrent -
Mandela, Malala, Leah Sharibu - the torch of
«No, said Prometheus», flame and anthem,
Finds fissures, a lustrous flame bursts through
Chibok and Dapchi, to re-illuminate the world.

«No» she said, and «No!» he said, a choric -«No!
I am no prisoner of this rock….I toiled,
Precedent on all earth, a mortal shard
Thrust whole from the marsh of creation».

Leah, this trial of your youth is cruel,
Unjust. You may falter but, the shame is
Ours, a nation’s, and a world in thrall
To lying faiths. A timeless host
Precedes. Through heart and mind
They’ll lead you. Their voices join
In supplication from our enfeebled space
That only seems abandonment: Survive,
Leah. Forgive.

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