When You Read This Someday By Nyabuti Peter Semba

When You Read This Someday

When you read this someday,

the world may already have carried you

across rivers I never crossed.

You may stand in gowns of triumph,

or beside someone you love,

or in a moment so full of light

you forget that shadows ever existed.

If I am gone, don’t let grief

turn the air heavy in your chest.

I’ve simply gone ahead—

waiting on a quiet hill

where time stands still,

listening for your laughter

riding on the wind.

My son,

remember that strength

is not the roar that others hear,

but the calm after the storm inside you.

Work with your hands,

but never let your heart grow calloused.

Build what lasts—

kindness, integrity,

and the courage to say I was wrong.

My daughters,

walk gently in your brilliance.

Let wisdom be the silk around your fire.

The world will cheer your success,

but don’t forget the road that brought you home—

the dust, the songs, the hands

that steadied your first steps.

When life wounds you—

and it will—

don’t rush to hide the scars.

They are proof

you were brave enough to live.

And when joy comes,

don’t fear it either—

drink from it slowly,

the way rain rests on the roof

before it sinks into the earth.

Each of you carries a fragment of my voice.

When the wind brushes your cheek,

know it’s not goodbye—

just me reminding you to keep walking,

to keep loving without measure,

to keep forgiving faster than you’re wronged.

And when you, too, become parents,

or mentors, or wanderers—

when your hands tremble to write

a message for those you love—

let love be the ink.

That’s how we keep each other alive.

So go, my children—

live wide, live kind, live true.

And when the world feels too loud,

return to the silence we once shared.

You are my forever poem,

and I am every line

that led you home.

Poet’s Note

This poem began as a father’s whisper to his children—a voice preserved for the milestones he might not live to witness.

It reflects love, legacy, and the hope that words can stand where a parent cannot.

For any reader who carries the weight of guiding the next generation, may these lines remind you: love continues long after we do.