By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection Issue 12, Monday, June 29, 2026
********************************
A nation is not built around a man but around the principles that outlive him.
We pledge to the man, not to the land,
We bow to a figure, not the flag’s command,
We build our houses on a mortal name,
Then blame the nation when it falls in shame.
A party is born the day he arrives,
It feeds on his breath, on his presence survives,
No constitution deeper than his voice,
No member truly free to make a choice.
His portrait hangs where principles should stand,
His word becomes the law across the land,
We do not join a cause — we join a man,
And call that loyalty a working plan.
The minister does not serve public trust,
He serves the hand that raised him from the dust,
His compass does not point to state or norm,
But to the man who keeps him in reform.
Ask him the mission — he repeats a name,
Ask him the vision — still it sounds the same,
The policy bends with the patron’s mood,
The budget shifts with leadership’s attitude.
So office turns into a private shrine,
The public good becomes a blurred design,
The contract goes not to the worthy bid,
But to the one who bows the lowest lid.
This is patronage — the quiet, killing rot,
That rewards who you know, not what you’ve got,
That builds no pillar, lays no lasting stone,
But raises borrowed thrones men call their own.
Look at the parties standing in the square —
Strip the founder out, and what is there?
No rooted vision in the common soil,
No plan for farmer, teacher, or their toil.
When the sargeant fell, his troop fell away,
When the fighter fled, his party lost its way,
When the lady stepped down, the unity cracked —
Because the man was front, the flag was back.
We mourn the leader but not the creed,
We scatter at the root for lack of seed,
We built a tent and called it home instead,
Then wondered why it broke when strength had fled.
Liberia, your flag bears stripes of red,
Each stripe a truth we should have long since said:
That something higher than one man must stand,
That principle must rule this weary land.
The star upon your flag is not a face,
It is a nation reaching into space,
A promise written long before the plan,
A covenant that outlives any man.
But we have shrunk that star to fit a name,
Wrapped all our politics around a flame,
We teach our children: follow power’s tone —
Not: stand for right, and walk it on your own.