Ten Long Years

For ten long years

we spared no one

on the theater of war,

where no glories were won,

only the wasted lives of our kinfolks

and the tired frame

of a battered nation,

where we were prey and predator.

From humble Bomaru,

agony rode through our veins

to the death of heroes and villains,

when blood relatives of this land

hunted one another

with apocalyptic grudge,

fighting to conquer themselves

in a land divided against itself.

We had forgotten the peace

once shared in the noise children made

when they played hide and seek

on nights illuminated by moonlight,

when adults sat around the fire

sharing legends of their land

and the illustrious heroes

whose bold steps cleared our path.

We had strayed too far

from the luminance of Naimbana

and the bravery of Sengbe and Nyangua

to where we became lab animals

in the murderous hands of intoxicated children

controlled by savage hands,

possessed by evil spirits

conjuring our bloody end.

When our neighbors

in green and blue helmets

arrived to keep the peace

our fire had burned too far.

Those with any life left

rose from cinder

like feverish zombies

groaning and trembling to life.

Now let our ruin be our rebirth

as life itself springs from death,

a new country consecrated with blood

germinates with zest and courage,

with a firm commitment

to never again

turn to violence

to settle scores.

-Joseph Kaifala.

Joseph Kaifala is a lawyer , scholar and human rights activist from Sierra Leone.

I Am The Sierra Leone

I am the Sierra Leone that collared a tripping mouthed stranger

whose intoxication challenged my existence before his arrival

O' how he aroused the sentries watching over my fathers' land

whose thunderous growls must have sent him back to the coast

I am the Sierra Leone whose belly is home to to a thousand treasures

adorning a suit of resilience, I splash in exotic waters of patience

and laze on beaches paved with marble sands under the Sierra sun

a picture of queenly flair to all who graze upon my lush greens

I am the Sierra Leone that birthed the Senghe Pieh's heart

of defiance and will to live or die fighting for a right to live

one whose humanity was shipped away on high seas of slavery

to feed the lowliness of colonialism through gullets of racism

I am the Sierra Leone that nursed and taught the Davidson Nicols

of this world, to grace the Halls of the Great Athens of West Africa

whose apparel of glory left to dive, shall fly again in the African skies

for ours is a people with a vision to mark our handprints in history

I am the Sierra Leone where the 'Yokos'

of every generation

dance to the traditional drumbeats of virtue and pride of womanhood

amid deafening citations of high infant and maternal mortality

while the shadow of morbidity stubbornly lingers around our homes

I am the Sierra Leone that an eleven year conflict and carnage

left behind to rise from the shambles of past mistakes, to sing

with one voice that never again shall we swim in rivers of our own blood

just because our voices are stifled by voices stronger and powerful.

Samuella Conteh is a writer, poet and human rights professional from Sierra Leone.