LAST WORDS

Beware of fame,
of poems so short they sound like mottos.
Beware of placards held aloft.
Steer clear of talk not set in solid ground,
of any plant kept in a pot, uprooted
from its native soil and lashing out.

I grew up on this tiny little island
and it’s always been kind to me, but I’m
not sure who I am since I began
to shift position. And, what’s this about a
sunken land-bridge?
May I remind you to mind your language.

In this place
of plate tectonics and shale deposits such
a claim can cause division.
Where now we stand so tall and eloquent,
fists full of bristling bracts, neither leaf
nor flower, colours blazing in our hands,

all will be quiet,
will all be blossom brushed aside, all be
words left unsaid.
How long before the last of us is turned
to dust and dug back in?
How long until our silence says it all?