With Cupped Hands

—A Griot’s Song for Gambia—

I sing of this land where rivers speak—
while The Gambia flows in her verse,
as narrow as a whisper,
yet wider than a mother’s hug.

For its waters are never silent—
humming with shouts of traders,
drummers, poets, and dreamers,
naming the stars with their footsteps.

Long before foreign tapestries unfurled,
she belonged to no one—
but was held and upheld by all:
the Mandinka, the Jola, the Wolof,
who read her moods like sacred script.

I remember the kora’s silver strings,
plucked in the glow of Brikama dusk
by decorated griots whose tongues
threaded fraying time into strong story.

I remember Kunta Kinte,
child of Juffureh,
whose name could not be chained,
whose spirit drifts still
on the river's remembering tide.

This land, too, has known sorrow—
slave ships carved through her waters,
dark hulls filled with stolen breath—
but the song of the river endured.

Still the women pound rhythm into millet,
still children dance dust into gold,
still the mangoes ripen in morning light,
while wisdom leans on the fisherman’s pole.

Gambia—your name is not just a nation
but a calling, a cadence,
a prayer spun in mud, kilned in song.

And I—
not just the one who sings you,
but one who listens.

For I am only a voice in your chorus,
singing all the river never forgets,
a griot with open, cupped hands.