Dark Continent

They name you dark, but never saw your light,
Mistaking shadow for what they should fear.
Yet sunrise molds your silence into sight.

Your stories whispered deep into the night
Were turned away, refused the right to hear.
They name you dark, but never saw your light.

The baobab has stood through all wrong and right,
Each tree ring a recorded history clear.
Yet sunrise molds your silence into sight.

Your rivers flow with old ancestral might,
Though maps were drawn to disappear what’s near.
They name you dark, but never saw your light.

Still drums recall the stars and flames so bright—
Your pulse, your truth, they echo year to year.
Yet sunrise molds your silence into sight.

So now I write to set your name aright:
Africa—not absence, but what’s sincere.
They name you dark, but never saw your light.
Yet sunrise molds your silence into sight.