Another Eden: Stanley Camp
To me, a child
interned in a camp,
whose conscious life
had been behind barbed wire
imprisoned by guards and guns of war,
in spite of endless hunger,
and punishment for breaking rules,
malignant malnutrition,
lingering smell of disease,
and even, at times,
sharp intrusions of war's ugly sword,
the camp was a garden...
a place of adventure and delight,
an Eden of discovery...
After a life beyond barbed wire
and bowls of meagre rice,
beyond intestinal parasites
and danger in the air,
my passion for the earth,
for green growth and canopy
and the life that springs within,
rises from a yearning,
surviving through these years,
for that childhood captive Eden
nurtured in my mind
where wild in confinement
I played through World War Two.
To me, a child
interned in a camp,
whose conscious life
had been behind barbed wire
imprisoned by guards and guns of war,
in spite of endless hunger,
and punishment for breaking rules,
malignant malnutrition,
lingering smell of disease,
and even, at times,
sharp intrusions of war's ugly sword,
the camp was a garden...
a place of adventure and delight,
an Eden of discovery...
After a life beyond barbed wire
and bowls of meagre rice,
beyond intestinal parasites
and danger in the air,
my passion for the earth,
for green growth and canopy
and the life that springs within,
rises from a yearning,
surviving through these years,
for that childhood captive Eden
nurtured in my mind
where wild in confinement
I played through World War Two.