Eradicating Illiteracy

 Eradicating Illiteracy

(In the style of Walt Whitman)

O voices of the earth, rise up!
Each one, untamed, each one free, yet all together—a multitude,
We march, not in battle against flesh,
But in a war against darkness, the silent chains of the mind.
Children of the streets, workers in factories,
Mothers, fathers, the old and the young,
You shall be heard! No longer silenced by the unseen barriers,
No longer left behind by the great river of words that flows,
Let the light of learning sweep the plains, the cities, the hills.

Books for the hands of all! Not just for the chosen few.
The ink of knowledge, vast as the sea, must reach every soul,
No more will ignorance bind us,
No more will blank stares meet the beauty of language,
We build a nation with every letter learned,
With every page turned, with every voice raised in understanding.

I see the schools rise like proud towers,
I see the night workers bent over their books by lamplight,
The farmer in his field singing lines of wisdom,
The young girl with a future lit bright by the fire of learning.
No more will the pages be foreign to them,
No more will the words be locked in the prison of the unknown.

O teachers, rise with me, open the gates wide!
The field is ripe, the harvest of minds awaits,
Eradicate illiteracy, for it is not just the lack of letters,
But the lack of freedom, the lack of voice,
I see a world where all can read, all can write,
Where knowledge flows like rivers through every land.

Rise, O people, rise with me!
The words are yours to claim, the future is in your hands,
With learning, you are boundless, with literacy, you are free.