The Highways Of Grief Poem by Chinedu Dike

The yellow sands became a great and silent beast,
That crawled across the map on dusty claws.
It gathered human lives from west to east,
And ground them down within its golden jaws.

The caravan became a winding snake,
That shed a trail of white and broken bone.
It left a path of sorrow in its wake;
A million souls in bondage found no relief.

The sea became a wide and watery grave,
Where wooden vessels carried weeping cargo far.
The coastal winds ignored the plea to save,
And blew them underneath a foreign star.

The market scale was tipped by cruel greed,
Where a block of salt was balanced with a face.
A tragic cycle planted bitter seed,
That grew inside the bleeding tribal earth.

Yet thunder rolled across the toxic mire,
When broken spirits rose to break the chain.
They marched against the rulers of the time.
And washed away the slime with crimson rain.

The ancient paths are covered by the sand,
But modern soils still nurse the hidden scar.
The diaspora cannot be confined,
For out of darkness rose a morning star.