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| Photo by Trude Jonsson Stangel on Unsplash |
Kpowo & Kizɛ-wúlú
by Daniel Rightman Badom
Kpowo
(The Bridge of Vines)
We are engineered from things that bend but do not break.
Look at the zinc above our heads—
beaten flat by the rainy season,
turned into a chorus of iron drums every July,
holding back the sky with nothing but rust and prayer.
They call this a concrete jungle,
but the concrete doesn't know the root.
The root is in the vine.
The root is the way we weave ourselves together
when the river rises too high for a single man to cross.
Listen to the pavement breathe.
The penn-penn rider taking a curve on one wheel,
the girl balancing a mountain of plantain chips on her crown,
moving through the exhaust like a queen on a catwalk.
That is not just survival.
That is design.
That is structural grace under pressure.
We built our lives on a suspension.
Suspended between what was lost
and what we are making out of the dust today.
No blueprints from across the ocean can map this stance—
we draw our own lines in the red dirt with our heels.
So let the storm shake the ropes.
Let the humidity eat the mortar.
The structure will hold.
Because we are not the stone that cracks under the heat
we are the vine that twists,
the bridge that sways,
the people who cross over, every single time.
Kizɛ-wúlú
(The Great Gathering)
Clear the aisles.
Open the iron gates until they groan against the hinges.
This room was built for a thousand voices,
but today, we are packing an ocean inside these walls.
Let the shoulders touch.
Let the breath of the person next to you become your own.
When the congregation is this thick,
even the concrete beneath our feet begins to sweat.
This is the great gathering.
The place where the scattered streams meet the river.
From the deep hills of the north to the salt-spray of the coast,
we did not come to sit in the shadows of the gallery.
We came to occupy the center.
Kizɛ-wúlú.
Listen to the architecture tremble.
When the choir lifts the first note, it is not a song
it is an avalanche.
It is the sound of every zinc roof that ever rattled in the storm,
every drum that ever woke the morning dust,
every child who ever laughed under the heavy downpour,
all hitting the rafters at the exact same time.
Look at the canopy of hands raised in the air.
A forest of fingers catching the light,
weaving a roof of human spirit that no wind can tear down.
They thought a crowd was just a number on a page,
but we are a single organism today.
One pulse. One spine. One undeniable roar.
Let the governors listen from their high windows.
Let the walls of old division crack under the bass line.
We are too loud to be ignored.
We are too heavy to be moved.
Kizɛ-wúlú.
The assembly is complete,
the ceiling cannot hold the sound,
and the truth is shaking the floor.
Daniel Rightman Badom is a Liberian author, spoken-word poet, and architectural designer based in Monrovia. Rooted deeply in the oral traditions of the Liberian interior and the sharp, rapid-fire Koloqua of Monrovia’s street corners, Daniel’s poetry handles the complex realities of national identity, resilience, and positive masculinity. He is the author of I, Liberia, and the forthcoming compilation Ashes Beneath the Cotton Tree. As the founder of a grassroots creative arts club, he is fiercely committed to mentoring the next generation of Liberian storytellers, ensuring the country's ancient rhythms are electrified and reinvented for the future.
