This country is like a confluence

Of all oceans, seas and rivers;

Despite her very moderate scale,

She is greater than all the fish

And shell-fish and jelly-fish,

As well as all other specimens

Combined together on her coast.

She is greater than all the salt

And peloid thrown down to her feet

From above. She is greater

Than the lame propaganda

And petulance of the whole world

About her returned blood sons

And her Book’s devoted disciples.

She is greater than hypocrisy,

Shame, obscenity and cupidity

Of her petty statesmen, regimes,

Governments and bureaucrats,

And turncoat generals in power and

Fence-riding rebels for good measure.

She is greater than all her wars,

Undermining, fences, missiles,

Tunnels and cyber-viruses

Laid end to end, without a break.

She is greater than her dirty streets

In boondocks, the third world’s want

And her hungry children in slums—

She is surviving them all,

As she did it before. Amidst wars,

Clashes, scuffles, skirmish

And enclosures, being surrounded

By her floating boundaries

And hostile glares, she quietly sips

From her cup of black coffee

And smiles on, and in her smile

I see her real vigour at times

That of mother, and at others

Of mother-in-law, who quietly sips

Her coffee and smiles on,

And in her smile I detect at times

A mere laziness to change

And at others a crude conservatism

That savours of wild arrogance.

So, laziness or arrogance, which?

I have no answer to respond,

But somewhere deep in her soul,

That is what I surely know,

Lurks the cunning of an old witch,

And it is a cunning, which

Is weirdly impressive to me.

What a strange ancient soul!

What a greatly wounded soil

Grinded down throughout the ages

Into the sands, dusts and ashes!