We Who Left The Gold Behind Poem by Akwu Sunday Victor

We Who Left the Gold Behind
By Victor Eneojo (inspired by the cries of a continent)

We are the children of the soil,
Where rivers run with oil
And mountains cradle cobalt and gold,
But our dreams were sold
For peanuts on foreign plates
By leaders with ten stomachs,
And no conscience for our fates.

We are the minds drained from Africa's breast,
Carrying brilliance in broken briefcases,
Wiping tables in cities
That once borrowed our books.
Our names sound like kings,
Yet we kneel like pawns
In foreign lands where snow
Falls on borrowed dignity.

They have no oil, no gold,
No coltan in their crust
Only storms, quakes, and icy air,
But they mined their minds
And built empires on ideas.
They grew thinkers like trees,
While we chopped ours at the root
For the firewood of selfish power.

We have wealth that walks on legs
Doctors, engineers, poets, teachers
All boarding planes like exiles
From the land of squandered plenty.
We leave behind Mercedes-driving ministers
Who can't spell integrity,
And senators with stomachs
Larger than national budgets.

O Africa, Mama of milk and minerals,
Why do your breasts still dry
For your own children?
Why must we beg for bread
While sitting on silos of grain?
Why must we bend our backs
While lying on beds of diamonds?

We left not for love of cold weather,
But for warmth of opportunity.
We traded native tongues
For passports and paychecks,
Not because we hate our roots,
But because our roots are choking
In the soil of corruption.

Europeans built cathedrals of minds,
We built cathedrals of greed.
They teach their toddlers to dream,
We teach ours to survive.
They face natural disasters;
We face leadership disasters
And theirs, at least, bring people together.
Ours divide, devour, and disappear.

And so we run
From sun to snow,
From hope to hustle.
We, the exiled eagles,
Searching for skies that will not clip our wings.
But one day,
May the prodigal minds return
To till the ground with truth,
And teach the land to value brains
Over bullion.

Until then,
We'll keep lamenting in airports,
Crying in cubicles,
Whispering to the wind:
We are rich in earth,
But poor in worth.
We are home in exile,
And exiled from home.