Children in Exile, by James Fenton
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“What I am is not important, whether I live or die--
It is the same for me, the same for you.
What we do is important. This is what I have learnt.
It is not what we are but what we do,”
Says a child in exile, one of a family
Once happy in its size. Now there are four
Students of calamity, graduates of famine,
Those whom geography condemns to war,
Who have settled here perforce in a strange country,
Who are not even certain where they are.
They have learnt much. There is much more to learn.
Each heart bears a diploma like a scar--
A red seal, always hot, always solid,
Stamped with the figure of an overseer,
A lethal boy who has learnt to despatch with a mattock,
Who rules a village with sharp leaves and fear.
. . .
Oh let us not be condemned for what we are.
It is enough to account for what we do.
Save us from the judge who says: You are your father’s son,
One of your father’s crimes--your crime is you.
Excerpted from “Children in Exile, Poems 1968-1984” by James Fenton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 120 pp., $12). Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.
