A Man Of Two Islands Poem by Bill Mitton

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