UNDETERRED

Undeterred

The morning does not knock before it enters,

it simply comes, the way the harmattan comes,

dusting yesterday's worries off the compound,

waking roosters before the drums.

I rise the way the Niger rises after rain —

not loud, not sudden, but sure of where to go,

carving new paths through red earth and old terrain,

finding roads no elder's map could show.

There were nights I counted stars like cowries,

as if each one could settle what I owed,

years I measured distance in old stories,

by scars I carried down a lonely road.

But patience taught me what the farmer knows:

you do not scold the yam for taking time,

you trust the root before you trust what grows,

you tend the soil and wait for harvest's chime.

So now I walk with dust upon my slippers,

proverbs folded deep within my chest,

each hardship that once made me a beginner

becomes the proof I never gave up the quest.

Life will test the fire inside your chest,

will ask you questions silence cannot solve,

but growth is like the baobab — slow, unpressed,

strong roots first, before the branches evolve.

I am not finished, I am still unfolding,

like cloth still on the loom, not yet complete —

still learning what my grandmother kept holding:

that hope outlasts the hardest thing you'll meet.