1984

120 the minnesota review J. P. White 1984 Children. We had grown into children Of a lesser order, unquestioning, Distracted, easily amused—each alone Like a flower that every morning Slowly opens its eyes, gazes Without reproach at the gardener Who cuts and bleeds die stem. On the legendary isle ofhappiness, No written word caught in die craw, Essential as bread. Many just drank, Or looked on as angels, forgetting To raise voice when the roweled heel Ofthe general spun over the dead. We heard in the click ofengaged gears, A truth sent down by the audiorities. We could not conceive of fire, Hunger or the sword, diat die date Of our execution had been fixed By an old diin man with shiny boots And a riding crop. Call this life In the flowerbed, a failure Ofthe imagination, call it fear Ofthe soil eroding, the sky tearing. But this much is certain ofour childhood: IfHeIl guarantees its young Magnificent quarters, silk robes, The sweetest cakes, all possible pleasures, Yet condemns them to live In ignorance, nodding among sticks And stones as one more fallen stem, This would be punishment enough, This would surely disappoint the gods Who we said would hold our last days from harm. ...