Born in a gentle country – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



Born in a gentle country – Janet Frame

Born in a gentle country
mothered by peace and mercy
I’ve never learned to stay in the forbidding House of Judgement
where guests are warned to speak one sentence only,
‘Humanity is no excuse for Humanity.”

I’ve discovered it’s not mercy
nor peace nor being born in a gentle country
that deters me: the rent is too high
decision on decision paid out to a total
terrifying lifelong responsibility.

Besides, who is to know whether the true owner, Love,
who first toiled and planted the walled garden, may wander now,
himself an insane prisoner in the House of Judgement?




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.