The Price Of Clean Hands Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

They crown the wolf and chain the lamb,
Then call the wound a noble psalm;
The market weighs with crooked scale,
Where honest breath is priced too frail.

A boy whose books were left unread
Now rides where wiser feet once bled;
His palace blooms from poisoned seed,
While truth goes barefoot, bruised by need.

The shrine now nurses minted gold,
As conscience shivers in the cold;
A mother's prayer, once heaven's flame,
Now bargains with her child's good name.

I till the earth with faithful hands,
Yet own no throne in hollow lands;
My sweat is clear, my pocket thin—
Their noise outshouts my quiet skin.

But time, the judge no coin can bribe,
Will sift the boast from every tribe;
When painted crowns dissolve like clay,
Clean hands shall outlive gilded prey.