I am a man of two green islands <br />Which by unhappy force and nature <br />Have become home to five peoples <br />Not that these people are different <br />For we have lived cheek by jowl <br />For fifteen hundred summers <br />We have traded, and fought wars <br />Against, and alongside each other <br />We have loved and married <br />We have moved and mixed <br />The blood that flows in our veins <br />contains the elements of all <br />And the whole of none <br />Cruelty, treachery, dishonour, deceit <br />We have used and shared them all <br />But it remains a fact <br />We of the two islands, have become <br />Who we are in this world <br />Not, as history would have it, <br />In spite of each other <br />but because of each other. <br />Throughout the bad times <br />The men of Andrew and David <br />Bled and died, alongside <br />The men of George and Patrick <br />Not for any Queen or Flag <br />Not for any Flower or Plant <br />Not for some government edict <br />Nor a Royal command <br />But for a far simpler truth <br />The cement which in the end <br />Let’s us live in this sometimes <br />Fragile, sometimes unequal <br />Edgy brittle harmony <br />simply <br />because of this love we share <br />For our two green Islands<br /><br />Bill Mitton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-man-of-two-islands/
