AS BOTSWANA TURNED 50 YEARS

You were barren yet bountiful Botswana when I bid for you

I baited you and dated you with all your doubts due

I took you to the floor flourishing in the open dance

Betrothed we wedded and gave each other the chance

Fifty years later our dance remains faultless

Yet its flourish declines to be doubtless.

For as in dance I move you to the floor

In doubt you dance me to the door.

You wish that I would praise your beauty and cherished charms

You feel my bait since the first date is now decked in dutiful alms

The dance we share is like motions broken by staccato passages

The bands of bonds we banded and bounded to lack messages

For you think I am lacking in feeling

Because my waltz now lacks sterling

The truth though lives that I love you

Slow speed is from the pace of loving you

Fathom the changes you’ve undergone and the loads on board

Picture the sequences of the dance and the moves you hoard

Then you will see me as the old stranger in the new environ

Whose lexicon is of fifty years and his attire a worn out gown

My graces are less resplendent where you retain elegance

Because your country dance mismatches my relevance

By Andrew Sesinyi