Let The Tombstone Speak For Those Who Were Silenced
written by: Obongofon Etuk
It will be said one day, today,
when our crows forget to rise without a question,
that children watched their fathers crumble into silhouettes
and did nothing.
That the laughter of youth spun around empty circuses,
while the work of the world piled like silent stones
on the backs of the unseen.
Posterity will open her chapter
and read the names we left unspoken.
She will count the days as one might count bones in a grave,
and she will weep for what was buried alive
beneath our fathers’ arrogance.
The grey men, hunched, whispering, & unshaken,
still parade their follies.
Their beards, last great with wisdom,
are shorn to the skin,
and the lessons of centuries dissolve
like water in vinegar.
They speak of some truths, yet their tongues twist them into decayed vines;
they hold the map of power
and yet lead the children in circles
to play while the world rots.
Hear now the refrain:
The grey men never die,
and the fragrance of their deeds linger still.
Let posterity remember,
Let her read the infernos our fathers lit
as casually as one might leaf through a diary.
Let her mark the cities of fire, the rivers of lead,
the graves of the disappeared,
and the mouths that screamed
beneath the weight of silence.
Point her to Mr. Wazobia,
whose hands were steeped in blood
yet walked free in sunlight,
whose bullets diced the air
and left children hollow as drums.
Tell her of the lasses from Chibok
and all those whose names vanished
like smoke into the heavens.
Let her see the tombstones stacked in crooked lines,
and know the full measure of terror
that our fathers dared to call governance.
Bring her to the plains of ash,
once a city of laughter, markets, and song.
Let her taste the dust of lost streets
and hear the bones of butchered soldiers rattle
beneath her feet.
Show her the skulls of children sliced open
as if bread were easier to knead than innocence.
And let her remember the villages burned
for faith and for fear.
The holy grounds on each holy feast turned to stone graves;
men, women, and children dragged into the open,
faces scorched by fire and hate,
blood soaking into the soil and watering the seed of fear and hate.
Let her hear the despairing calls in the wind,
of prayers still unanswered,
of faith eroded into canyons.
Hear now the refrain:
The grey men never die,
and the fragrance of their deeds linger still.
Look now to the activists, scattered and exiled,
They walk cities foreign and cold,
writing psalms that cannot return,
bearing witness to the crimes of those who rule in from Hades.
Their families huddle at night in fear,
their names whispered as though even a syllable might call upon death.
Yet they continue,
scribbling in exile,
punching truth into every palm that will listen,
because silence here is complicity, and history cannot forget.
Let her know: the sins of our fathers are not forgiven.
The weight of their crimes
falls on the children they scorned,
the children who circled their empty circuses,
the children whose hands were tied
while their homes crumbled into dust.
Let her remember the faces of the silenced,
paint them in fire across her pages,
and let the tombstones themselves speak.
Let her name the men who walked free,
whose eyes never saw the ruin they sowed.
Let her measure their cunning,
their cruelty,
their arrogance,
and let no stone be left unturned
in the reckoning of memory.
For every city reduced to ash,
for every child whose laughter died in silence,
for every protester cut down
and every voice chained,
let the tombstones speak,
let the earth remember,
let the wind carry their cries
to the ears of those who would still pretend.
Then when she writes,
let her write without mercy.
Let her say:
“The days were dark and full of contempt.
The fathers were monsters.
The children were bound in fear.
The world itself shook beneath their trail.”
Let the unborn hear the truth,
let them tremble at the legacy of neglect.
Point to every Mr. Wazobia
who walked unscathed from their inferno.
Show the children the ash, the graves, the skulls, the blood,
and teach them that silence is complicity.
Let her know that history is a mirror,
and the mirror remembers
even when the living forget.
Let her see the grey men, still breathing, still scheming,
and know that power without conscience
leaves only ruin in its wake.
And let her whisper in the ears of the future:
Hear now the refrain;
Do not forget.
Do not forgive.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Written in 2022 as an outcry on the government’s silence in the wake of the Owo church attack in Nigeria, the memory and the weight of unspoken crimes, this poem has found new urgency in the wake of tragedy on Palm Sunday 2026 in Nigeria.
Let it stand as a witness to the fallen, the silenced, and the brave who speak from exile. May the tombstones speak, and may we listen as history repeats its cruelties.
- Let The Tombstone Speak - July 15, 2026
- Cry Baby! - October 1, 2024
- Everything About a Person’s Feelings is in the Eyes - June 11, 2024
