Serena Eyo (June 6 / Calabar, Nigeria)

We are a people from the river
So you do not withhold seafood
From greasing our hungry plates
And giving us savoury taste
As our fathers deploy nets and bamboos
To court fish for the fire at home

Our people paddle their boat
To the centre of your being, and made boast
About the day’s catch, snatched from you
But you do not rage and swallow them up
For the way they gloat

Oh! Sweet Pretty River
You flow to nourish our land like Eden
And supplyfruits and vegetables at no price
To you we owe our home called Paradise
A place flowing with milk and honey
For which we did not pay a penny

Cross River, my pretty river
Mother of all goodness and blessedness I hail
No name would have been better
Than the one you gave a people
Cross River, my pretty river I hail