Conditions

When you walk here, walk carefully Walk without show of pride or class The eyes are watching you hawkfully Crouched in invisible guinea grass Smile as you go, this is friendly country "No problem" is the other motto here Where thick wool covers the hungry Like pale soldiers pride cover up dispear Watch where you put your feet, please Keep on your shoes, it is not holy ground The red lake is blood, we have no red seas It may be thunder or a bullet's sound Guns from armies dead in Iraq and Gaza Our factories can only make ice cold beers It is alright to dance, the love at the plaza Is strange and real, there are other fears Not grown here like banana or breadfruit Imported from the continent knowingly Keeping things in instability, a piper's flute Edging the deep margins and cunningly This is Jamaica, my island in the sun Where deep colonial antiquities loll abroad And sweet on beaches innocents run Little children who call this place "yard."