Last Chance, by Tim Evans

The sea rises.
A woman sits by the shore,
Singing the lost songs of love and exile.
And there shall be fires too,
Floods and hurricanoes,
As the sea rises
And the ocean swells
And the salt waves slap
Against the wet caves
Of our imagination.
Condemned to one last chance.

Why are you deaf and dumb?
Are we the last people?
Did these lakes and hills belong to us
Or we to them?
Is this our honour?
To be the last defenders
Of a wounded planet?

Remember, though…
It was not ‘we’ who sucked up oil from the veins of the earth,
It was not ‘we’ who created moving cities of automobiles
Headlights blazing through the motorways of night.
It was you – B.P, Shell, Total, Exxon Mobil,
Lukoil & Chevron,
GM, Ford, Honda, Chrysler
Peugeot, Suzuki
Rolls-Royce and Mercedes,
It is from your black fangs
That the oil drips
Through your steel veins
That the petrol thrums fast.

Cities are sinking into the sea tonight.
Wind rises from nowhere
Across the shattered beach

And the woman still sits
By the shore
Singing the old songs
Of love and revolt
“Rebel
Rise up
Because it is the last silence
Before the great thunder.
The winds blow stranger and wilder
And the waves are rising”.

And we are condemned to one last chance.
One last chance.