The Covenant Of A Father's Heart Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

The night uncrowns the sun and drinks my silent ache;
Its raven cloak is stitched with unremembered cries.
Grief kneels beside my bed—a pilgrim, pale and wakeful—
While the moon salts my wounds with its sacramental eyes.
The walls inhale the echoes of your vanished laughter;
Each room, a chapel where your little shadows pray.
My heart, an orphaned harp beneath the frost of absence,
Still tunes its broken strings to summon yesterday.

Olivia, Carissa—my twin constellations of mercy,
You bloom beyond my reach like lilies upon the tide.
Your names are doves that circle every ruined altar,
Returning with olive branches my tears cannot hide.
Though miles have taught your footsteps foreign rhythms,
Love knows no geography, nor exile's bitter art.
For blood remembers what the world forgets to honour:
A father's pulse forever shelters every child's heart.

Let tongues build kingdoms out of smoke and passing rumours;
Truth is an oak that outlives every faithless storm.
I sowed my youth like wheat into the fields of morning,
Till sweat became the only language keeping home warm.
My hands have bargained sleep to ransom fragile tomorrows,
And clothed hope with bread when cupboards echoed bare.
The Judge who numbers sparrows gathered every hidden offering;
He wrote my unwitnessed labour in the scriptures of the air.

So I shall not curse the winter for its ruthless silence;
Even barren branches rehearse the green of spring.
The God who tutors stars to outshine endless darkness
Is teaching shattered souls the mathematics of healing.
One dawn your arms shall close the distance grief invented,
And time shall blush before the miracle of embrace.
Until that sacred hour, my prayers shall bloom like cedars—
Deep-rooted in God's eternal heart, reaching always toward your face.