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.