Beloved Guyana, Mother
of rivers of humanity at your pretty feet I lay
a mat of nostalgia
for my siblings to sit.

Your doors forever you opened
to nomads, merchants, captives, labourers
neighbouring treasure hunters, all alike.
Your timbers they transformed into houses
and in your champagne streams they bathed.
On their table, sumptuos cuisines you lay
and their tea with crystals of sugar you sweetened.
Your palms you graciously opened, and behold
with gems scintillating they were mesmerized!
Everyone to your bosom you embraced.
No one you loved any lesser.

But some of your errant prodigy
learned not how to love.
Instead, spite and hatred they nurtured
and through methods Machiavellian
and for victories that can only be Pyrrhic!
They erected impasses, precipitated
fierce squabbles and rent the fabric
of harmony you had woven for us.
Even abroad, bitter ashes of disunity have wafted
Making us seem a volcanic, imbecile people
Knowing not when to end a perverse game.

Mother dearest, until your children learn
that your bounty is eternal and your inheritance the same for all
and they can join hands and the same anthem sing
and sit at the same table and sup
at your feet I shall sit
and to my brothers and sisters your desires I’ll tell
for, beloved Guyana, you are my heart
and I am your voice.