Canto III – The Roads We Are Breaking

By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection, Issue 22, Friday, August 7, 2026

Liberia will not be transformed merely by changing presidents, governments, or parties. Liberia will be transformed the day Liberians refuse to normalize what their conscience knows is wrong.

Morning arrives the same way it always has.
The Atlantic washes Cape Mesurado.
The sun lifts itself above the hills.
The Lone Star surrenders the sky to daylight.
And the Republic awakens …
Not only to what has been done,
But to what has been left undone.

A road is more than gravel, tar, and stone.
It is a promise.
A promise that a farmer’s harvest
Will reach the market.
A promise that a mother
Will reach the clinic
Before hope runs out.
A promise that a teacher
Will arrive before the lesson begins.
Every road is a sentence
Written between villages, declaring:
You matter.

But promises, like roads,
Crack when neglected.
Potholes are not born in a single season.
Neither is national decline.
Every abandoned bridge,
Every unfinished school,
Every clinic without medicine,
Every classroom without books,
Every darkened streetlight,
Every silent water pump …
Began as someone’s decision
To postpone the common good.

The Kapok Tree has watched
Children walk barefoot to schools
Whose roofs leak more than the rain.
It has watched
Nurses fight disease with courage,
While lacking the tools
That courage alone cannot provide.
It has watched
Farmers grow food for a nation
That often forgets their names.
The Kapok Tree does not speak.
But its roots have absorbed our history.

There is a dangerous sentence spoken too often:
“It belongs to government.”
As though government
Were someone else.
As though the market building
Belongs to strangers.
As though the hospital
Belongs to strangers.
As though the school
Belongs to strangers.
As though the Republic
Belongs to strangers.
No.
The Republic belongs
To every child whose laughter
Has not yet learned disappointment.

When we litter the street,
We litter our own future.
When we vandalize a public building,
We destroy our own property.
When we steal public funds,
We steal the medicine from an unborn child,
The desk from a student in a public school,
The bridge in a village still waiting to be connected to hope.
The theft is never only money.
It is possibility.
It is opportunity.

The Palava Hut remembers
When disputes ended with truth and reconciliation.
Not every argument produced a winner.
But every settlement strengthened the village.
Today, too many victories
Leave the nation defeated.
We celebrate winning arguments,
While losing our common purpose.

Listen to the marketplace.
Listen to the classrooms.
Listen to the street corners.
The Republic is always teaching.
The question is:
What lesson are we leaving for those still learning to become Liberians?
Will they inherit
Integrity or excuses?
Service or entitlement
Duty or indifference?

Some wait for heroes.
Some wait for elections.
Some wait for donors.
Some wait for miracles.
Meanwhile, history keeps moving.
The Atlantic does not wait.
The rain does not wait.
The child who needs a good school does not wait.
The sick cannot postpone their illnesses until integrity returns.

A nation is not built only inside its Capitol.
It is built every morning
When a citizen refuses to pay or demand a bribe.
It is built when a driver protects the road instead of destroying it.
It is built when a market woman returns what is not hers.
It is built when a teacher teaches
As though the future were sitting in the front row.
It is built when a public servant remembers
That the word “public”
Comes before the word “servant”.

The termites return each night,
Hoping to find new wood.
But they fear one thing: Light.
Not the light of speeches.
Not the light of campaign promises.
But the light of conscience.
The light that teaches a child to say,
“This is wrong, even if everyone else calls it right.”

The Lone Star still shines.
The Atlantic still remembers.
The Kapok Tree still stands.
The Palava Hut still waits.
Waiting for citizens who will understand
That patriotism is not measured
By the loudness of our songs,
Nor by the brightness of our flag,
But by the care with which
We guard what belongs to all of us.
For the Republic is not broken
Only by those who steal it.
It is also broken by those who watch
Its breaking and quietly walk away.
History will not ask how often we praised Liberia.
It will ask how faithfully we served Liberia.
History has never mistaken neglect for love.
Nor excuses for patriotism.
Nor silence for innocence.

The Atlantic is still writing.
The Kapok Tree is still remembering.
The Lone Star is still watching.
The Palava Hut is still waiting.
The question remains:
What roads are we building
And which ones are we still breaking?

About the Author

Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday is currently the president of the National Association of Social Workers of Liberia (NASOWL). He is also the current chairman of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at the Amos C. Sawyer College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Liberia. Dr. Foeday is passionate about social justice,  good governance, and community development issues. His writings reflect his core beliefs and values.