Spending life abroad,
you slowly lose your tongue,
but you chat with other Englishmen at times,
Scots, or wandering Americans,
or simply read a book or watch a film
which brings the language back again.
You notice words you haven't heard for years,
like 'flabbergasted', 'twerp' or 'baldersdash',
or new expressions - 'no probs' or 'not p.c.',
and so splash happily around once more
in English, that ever-shifting sea.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem