The Verdict Poem by Martins Akhoeneto

Truth entered court barefoot,
without a seal, a witness, or a name.
Power arrived beneath the painted ceiling,
and every chair knew why it came.

The Law held scales of iron—
one pan for proof, one pan for command.
When power touched the balance,
the needle trembled in the judge's hand.

Authority wore the language of order;
its signature darkened the page.
It called the locked door peace
and taught the silence to behave.

Then Truth spoke—not loudly, but exactly:
one fact laid bare upon the floor.
The gavel fell. The verdict followed.
Yet something stood that could not be overruled.

Beneath the court, the roots kept spelling
the names erased from the official page.
A single word rose through the marble,
small as a seed, patient as an age.

Power pressed its thumb upon the scales
until iron learned the shape of skin.
Authority fed the lie its final sentence,
then watched the ink begin to turn against it.

Let Law answer to Justice.
Let Power remember whom its hands must serve.
Let Authority fear the ink it leaves behind—
for every signature can become a witness.

Crowns tarnish.
Seals fade.
Decrees become dust.

But truth does not disappear beneath a ruling.
It gathers in the cracks.
It learns the shape of buried things.
It rises without permission.

And when the last decree has lost its voice,
when the throne is timber beneath the dust,
truth will stand where power thought it buried it—

not before the court,
not beneath the Law,
but beyond the reach of both:

the final witness,
the final measure,
the final verdict
no power can overturn.