Tributes to Cheddi Jagan
For full fifty years you strode through
The political arena,
Always on the move, leading by example,
The finest anyone can follow,
You believed in human decency and struggled
For a people to be united and free,
In a land where everyone can say
This is my home, I am happy,
Peace, progress and prosperity your achievements
Are there for all to see,
Whenever men meet to discuss Guyana they will
Talk of your greatness, Cheddi.
© Wendell George
He fulfilled his mission
This man who stood tall
In any company.He was a warrior
And yet a man without hate
In words or deeds.He was an intellectual
Who never forgot his roots
In the cane fields.He championed the oppressed
But spoke to kings and presidents
Without rancour.He was wedded to humanity
A man who deeply loved his family
And his champion, his wife.
Cheddi needs no elaborate monument,
This man whose life was an act of faith.
Time to rest at last.© Kathy Esquivel
© Ian McDonald(From Stabroek News, Friday March 7, 1997
As I write this before morning light after hearing the news of President Jagan's death I feel deep sadness, more shaken than I would have believed. For so long he has been a reassuring presence for good in the life of the nation. In the family of any nation there are quarrels but these are set aside when such a revered elder figure in. the family dies. For a long, long time we will be discovering ways in which we miss him.
I feel particularly sad that Dr Jagan did not have at least some time to rest, reflect on the struggles and achievements of a great life, and write down for us and succeeding generations the experiences and lessons of an extraordinary lifetime. Any man after a career of such arduous and continual struggle might be understood for seeking retirement from the stress of politics, the campaign burly-burly, the burdensome affairs of a poor and troubled state. He deserved a few quiet years in the bosom of his family, his party and the nation.
Of course he would have scoffed at such suggestions. All his life he worked hard. Work for the people, he said, was his hobby. He would have wanted to work hard to the end. I imagine he would have said that any lessons he had to teach would have to be learnt from the work he had done, from the example he had set. I do not think he would have liked the role of elder statesman, withdrawn from the fray, distanced from the everyday action in the nation he loved. He was not cut out to be a bystander.
It is reported that in October last he was warned of a heart problem. It may be that he was urged to take it easy, even to take time off to have the trouble attended to and thereafter live and work at a less hectic pace. I am speculating but in such a situation I cannot see Dr Jagan taking kindly to such urgings. There were so many important things to do, he would have contended, so many problems which could not wait for solving later, so many plans to activate, so many people to energise, so many to inspire with his vision, so much lost ground to make up. I wonder if he could ever have slowed down. "There will be plenty time to rest!"
Still, those years of peace and writing he might have had are a loss to the rest of us. His voice would have been heard on the side of reconciliation and national unity. His presence would have been a stabilising anchor in whatever storms might blow. His memories written down, and reflections refined by deeper thought, would have provided an absolutely unique picture of Guyana and its history in a long and abundantly filled life. There is a saying out of Africa that when an old man dies a whole library has burnt down. An incomparable library has now burned down and there is not a single Guyanese who does not know it is hard to count the loss.
I have a memory of Dr Jagan which I want to share. It was on no great state gathering of the eminent and the famous. He was at Rose Hall estate to give out house lot deeds to about fifty sugar workers. It was pouring with rain but he did not think of cancelling and they did not think of not attending. When it came to his turn to speak an aide handed him a speech, I suppose, but he gave a smile and did not take it. He then spoke from the heart to those few sugar workers and their families in the falling rain and I have never heard words so clear and powerful and suitable.
Not a long speech, no rolling periods, no ideology, but simple words spoken in a straight line to their heads and hearts. How their ancestors had suffered much in slavery and indenture. But now through years of struggle and sacrifice a different time had come. But they should know it was a time when they must bear responsibility, they must care for what they had won, they must show they were worthy of the efforts of those who had gone before. Now they must look after their house lots and improve them, they must leave things better for their children. He trusted them. He had always trusted them. They must remember what he said.
It was not really a speech. They had gathered around him and he was telling them the truth. I swear they will never forget what he said. And somehow on that quiet significant occasion I knew I had got a glimpse of what this man meant to the mass of people who loved him so much.
Whirling around in my head somewhere is what remains after age has taken its toll of the vast amount of poetry I have read in my lifetime. But often lines surface and I cannot for the life of me recall from what poem they come or who authored them. When I heard President Jagan had died some lines came as if summoned but I cannot remember their source. I wish I could remember the whole poem and who wrote the lines. The summoned lines captured for me something of Dr Jagan's fighting heart and the flame he lit for countless others. "He was one who in his life fought for life/who wore at his heart the fire's centre."
- Gone But Never Forgotten by Saywack Singh
Death, oh death, why do you have to come at this time,
To grab from us a Lord so honest and divine,
In his veins run the waters of a nation,
Which he has built with true love and dedicationThe world has lost a statesman and heaven gains a companion
In the person of a leader whom many see as their champion,
Never tired, he's always fighting for justice and equality,
His dream was to see his people live in peace and unity.Death, oh death, you have taken a legend and gone is our warrior,
He has spent his life to overcome the biggest barrier,
Standing firm against the bondage of imperialism,
Cheddi Jagan was the one to free us from oppressive colonialism.Today we think of a father and his passing we regret,
Yes, to his people he promised his own blood and sweat,
But his journey on earth has now come to an end,
Brothers and sisters, his struggle is for us to defend.Death, oh death, your pain is severe, the sun is now dark,
Gone is our beacon, but he has left his mark,
On the sands of time his memories we'll forever cherish,
His undone work we'll continue, it will never perish.His country he walked, his people were his treasure,
He took their grief, he had no time for pleasure,
Now with the angels he sits, yet looks upon us all,
Everything will be alright, Guyana will never fall.Death, oh death, why do you have to come so soon,
To take our light and brilliance of the moon,
Even the trees are still and the bird's seem to say,
As he will tell us –Carry on comrades, democracy is here to stay.
© Saywack Singh
- Requiem
for Cheddi Jagan
by Jan Carew
The river, amber-tinted by the rains,
garlands the falling tide with water hyacinths
and sings requiems for him on his way home
to ricefields and savannahs and bitter-sweet
sugarcane
where refrains of suffering still echoed in the wind
and streams veining forests and a maracage
flowed in time to the rhythms of rebellious hearts.
They laid him on a funeral pyre
and north-east Trades
gusting down corridors of Atlantic tides
touched his embalmed face
while lashing winds and rain
transformed prayer flags to Shiva
into red banners of his pristine dream
that the torment of the poor and the despised
must be redeemed forever.
His eves were closed
the orisons of priests
echoed across plumed arrows of the caneflelds
but showers of sparks rained down upon the mourners
reminding them
that deep inside the swaddling cotton shroud
was a dauntless heart of fire
and fire is never timid when it bonds with the winds of time.
Riversong and windsong
rhythms of rain
drumming on his funeral pyre
and a Swami and his acolytes cantoring poem-hymns
sang requiems for him at Port Mourant and home.
But showers of sparks and burning embers
fanned by an insurgent wind
deluged the bereaved, warning them
that hearts of fire never rest in peace
that embers hissing in the rain
can always burst into agile flames again and again
and leap as high as stars.
When a host of mourners melted in the mothering dark
the fire's glow brightened the night
and starlight jewelled dewdrops on petals of wild flowers,
a watchman of dayclean swore
that ancestor Acabre had come
in the witching hour
to greet a kindred spirit of fire.
"Look out for them," the watchman said,
"for from this day onwards,
the two, ever vigilant,
with their fearless mothers beside them
will walk hand-in-hand from Waini Point to Akari
Orealla to Roraima
I tell you, they'll make sure
that we unite
to realise their undying dreams."
© Jan Carew
- The Orange Tree
by
Churaumanie Bissundyal
(Dedicated to the late Cheddi Jagan for his contribution to World Peace)If I were to live my life again,
I choose to be an orange tree,
a bearing tree bristled with spikes of thorns
cultured amidst boughs and blooms
and tailored into symmetry
that my flowers seduce birds and bees
to revel in my nectar perfumed
that my fruits hanging in peace
between charity and pain
soothe the famished beggar seeking his day.Then, if all the world should dream like me
to be an orange tree,
their prejudice subdued,
passions pruned into tolerance,
violence silenced
vowing patronage for the weak and poor,
their greed smothered
seeking kindness for the hungry in despair,
what a world of love it would be
in this my beauty of an orange tree.© Churaumanie Bissundyal
Stealthily,
Like a thief,
You struck a cruel blow.
Like the grim reaper that you are,
You mowed a precious life,
Destroyed the dreams of a nation.
Oh cruel death,
You are heartless,
Indiscriminate.
You robber of happiness,
You left us numb,
With pain and grief.
You have created a void,
By destroying a kind soul,
Our tears will flow,
Our world will collapse,
But you will move on...
Having collected another gem.©
David A. Mortley