Scars In The Scrolls Poem by Chinedu Dike

The scrolls hold the stain of ancient ink,
Where learned scribes mapped the desert trade.
Upon the parchment edge, the spirits sink,
As cold accounts of human chains were made.

The ledgers recorded spices, salt, and gold,
Beside the numbers of the stolen lives.
The formal text was clinical and cold,
written down with structural, quiet pride.

The chronicles described the palace floor,
And praised the rulers under northern skies.
But when they reached the heavy market door,
They closed their books upon the weeping eyes.

No scholar wrote about souls dying in the sand,
Or young men altered by a brutal blade.
They focused on the markets of the land,
And how the fortunes of the state were made.

Yet history bleeds through every faded page,
Where modern eyes can read the hidden scars.
The truth breaks free from its historical cage,
And shines through ink like bright, forgotten stars.

The ancient highways fade into the gale,
But library shelves preserve the heavy dread.
The diaspora sings a living tale,
The grandest book that time has finally read.