I am Guyana.
Land of rolling brown waters and low, wide plains
of pregnant, perspiring forests
and, perhaps, El Dorado too
..but that's for me to know,
not you.
I am Guyana.
Of table mountain, and strange blue lakes
thatched benab huts or Georgetown's white timber homes
of fine fretwork, Demerara windows and sheltered galleries
where you may host
and enjoy the breeze.
I am Guyana,
six people came to me, singing songs of their former lands -
but I changed their tune
and soon
they overturned towns, torched fields, raised hands
to claim me.
At which I laughed, a laugh of oil,
fine and dark - beneath my soil
deep down in beds beneath my sea...
they want to share the joke with me,
Guyana.
Come and see - but if you stay,
know I have been millions of years this way,
I do not bow to man's idea
of what should be and who rules here.
Can't you tell that I'm untamed?
Little known and much unchanged.
You come and go,
but I remain...
Guyana.
Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown