We kindly folk go up and down
About our work in our home town.
Not one of us will pause to face
The fact that in this very place
Today, as we are walking by,
Ten children will be made to die
Not at their own appointed time;
Not for doing some foul crime;
Not from hunger or disease:
Their deaths are due to none of these.
They die because we all consent:
Their lives were inconvenient.
Note from Joe: This poem is an example of the poetic form called a “villanelle.” The most famous villanelle is
Dylan Thomas’ great poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”.
Another is Wendy Cope’s “A Reading”.