“You will understand when you grow older,”

They said, with voices carved from harmattan winds,

With eyes that had seen a thousand yesterdays,

Yet I laughed—oh, how I laughed!

For what could time teach me,

That my sharp tongue did not already know?

---

But time is a silent sculptor,

Carving truth into the bones of the stubborn.

A child laughs at the weight of an elder’s words,

Until one day, he carries that weight himself.

---

The chick mocks the mother hen’s caution,

Till the hawk carves wisdom into its feathers.

The river mocks the stillness of the well,

Till the dry season turns its arrogance to dust.

---

“You will understand,” they whispered,

And I, drunk on the sweet palm wine of youth,

Spat their words into the wind.

But the wind is a patient messenger,

And it carried those words back to me—

Folded in the creases of my aging face,

Tucked into the stiffness of my weary bones.

---

The yam does not argue with the soil,

It simply waits for the season to ripen its truth.

For you cannot teach fire how to burn,

Nor can the ocean tell the raindrop where it must fall.

---

I once thought the elder’s sigh was weakness,

Now I know it is the weight of knowing.

I once thought their silence was surrender,

Now I know it is the wisdom of the lion,

Who does not waste his roar on insects.

---

The snail laughed at the tortoise,

Till the fire came, and only one carried its home.

A bird mocks the tortoise for its slow feet,

Until the storm comes and wings are not enough.

---

And so, I stand where they once stood,

The words now heavy on my own tongue.

I watch a younger fool scoff at my wisdom,

And I do not argue, I do not force—

I only smile, and I only sigh.

---

“You will understand when you grow older.”