Encomium of African Motherhood and Resilience

 

She rises before the cock crows,

her palms laced with the fragrance of toil,

her back carrying baskets of hope,

her eyes pouring rivers of prayers

into the mouths of children yet unripe for dawn.

 

O Mother of Africa, 

you are the drumbeat that stirs our veins,

the lullaby that softens storms,

the river that never runs dry,

though stones of hardship weigh your waters.

 

Your womb is the first shrine,

your milk, the scripture of survival,

your footsteps, the maps of endurance,

your silence, a covenant of patience.

 

Through famines, you fed us with faith;

through wars, you shielded us with woven arms;

through exile, your voice became home, 

an anthem stitched in our bones.

 

Resilience is your second name:

you bend like the baobab in harmattan,

yet never break,

you burn like the sun at noon,

yet never fade.

 

O Mother of the Continent,

your scars are sacred ink,

writing stories of triumph on our skins.

Your laughter, 

even in hunger, 

is a festival of courage.

 

We sing you,

not as a woman alone,

but as the soil that grows nations,

the roof that shelters generations,

the heartbeat of a people unbroken.

 

Today, let every tongue rise in gratitude:

for the hands that cooked,

the lips that prayed,

the shoulders that carried centuries of burden

with grace like a crown.

 

Encomium to you,

African Mother,

matriarch of resilience, 

your legacy is eternal fire,

lighting the paths of tomorrow.