The Shade

Under the shade we flourish

But we stand in barren fields

Young minds are starved

Swept  

To unfulfilling paradigms

They lose sight of

Hope and patriotism

Sucked further

Into a whirlpool of

Complacency, Ignorance

Arrogance and Immaturity.

                     

We pledged to freedom our manhood...

While our womanhood and childhood

Lay neglected and abandoned

Alcoholism, rape, child abuse,

Sexual exploitation, domestic violence

Mounting suicides...

And as the gradient steepens,

We still claim to be free

But shackles bind us by our hands and feet.

Jobs rarer than pink elephants

Beggars adorn our streets

Yet a chosen few enjoy tax breaks,

Immunity to The Law,

And Our tax dollars...

But no one holds accountable

The tyrants that still linger

So while parochial leaders fill their own coffers

Tens of thousands remain below poverty line

Where’s the freedom that was professed?

We’re still waiting on tomorrow’s noon

Oppression’s rod clings to us like an eagle's talons...

While our educated countrymen and women

Continue to flee... and who can blame them?

We are no longer hewers...

Instead we’re being hewed

By rising costs and stagnant wages,

Limited opportunities

Facilitated by nepotistic despots

The might of truth has proven weak

Our leaders proven Godless

They blind us; segregate us

Using red or blue

To the point that

We no longer are united

And can no longer recall

The sweet taste of unity.

We are the architects of our nations design

As a people we continue to transcribe

From the examples provided by

Countless nations before us...

But instead of extrapolating a sustainable design

We are engineering the blueprints for a revolution

That is forthcoming

It is coming...

I hear it in the distance

Like the clanking of chains

Worn by long lines of untouchables

And as the voice of oppression

Reverberates and echoes off the hillsides

I realize that our oppressors linger on

The Baymen have departed

But their legacy remains

I can hear it in the distance

Thundering down these hills

Carving further into these valleys

Like the corruption that carves us into oblivion

I can hear it in the distance...

And it is time to change our course.

We must face this giant like our forefathers

Faced the Spaniards off St. Georges Caye

Like them we must stand united...

Many races under one flag

For the good of the nation

Not the good of our own pockets

Like a forest

We must stand United

Buttresses sunk deep

That we may cast a shade

So others may flourish

For only through unity and justice

Will barren fields

Transform to dense jungles

Only then will we be a land of free

Men, women and children...

Under the shade we flourish...

We must replant the trees

© José V. Guerra Awe