Abstract
In Celebration of Index on Censorship’s 40th Birthday
When the house began burning
I could not speak out
When one dark night gave way
To another, even darker night
I could not speak out
When the grass ran away
And the desert came hurrying towards the city like a thirsty child
I could not speak out
No one had imprisoned me
No one had cut out my tongue
It was fear of my child’s tongue
Being cut out and thrown away like a damaged petal
Imprisoned me.
So continue to speak out for us, whose silences are many and varied.
Speak out for us when like sleazy conjurers
Politicians vanish the truth,
When rivers are poisoned, charities siphoned, wars bankrolled,
Speak out for us,
Whose tongues are nailed to the floor of our mouths by love
And whose lips are sewn together,
And in whose nightmares the arms of a child
Might still go flying away like wings, but leave the child behind.
Be our ghost-writers even when we are ghosts,
And the playgrounds fill with blood
And even the dead are beheaded.
Continue to speak out for us, give voice to our silence,
Year after year, illuminate for us
The great index of all that is wrong in the human heart.
Brian Patten