The Other

I was dining with four learned men only the other day.

And learned indeed they were, truly men of the world.

A little afar, sat huddled, almost afraid

The expatriate family.



Who they were, we knew not.

But this we knew, and knew above all else,

who they were not: Us.

They were The Other.



Thus spoke the first learned man:

Look there, if you will

Those people, over there

I've seen cleaner cattle, you know.



Said, the second learned man:

(And he was keen with numbers, as good as they come.)

They drain off what little we have,

And give but little in return.



The third learned man,

He was a man for order, apparently

for he pointed to their crying child,

and said something about lack of discipline.



And the fourth learned man,

he was a man of Religion.

He spoke with intensity,

of their corruption and ineptitude.



Thus they spoke, those wise men

Men of the world, who knew many a thing

But hadn't yet learned, in their long years

to see the man at the other side of the wall.



The expatriate child, noisy and unruly,

Running around our table, oblivious to contempt, as yet.

She plucks a flower from a potted Rose,

And smiling like an angel, she gives it to me.