People who belong to a particular country are referred to as ‘citizens’. In the following poem, Dave Calder explores what it means to be a citizen and the barriers people who have moved from one country to another may face.
Citizen of the World By Dave Calder
when you are very small maybe not quite born your parents move for some reason you may never understand they move from their own town from their own land and you grow up in a place that is never quite your home
and all your childhood people with a smile or a fi st say you’re not from here are you and part of you says fi ercely yes I am and part of you feels no I’m not I belong where my parents belonged
but when you go to their town, their country people there also say you’re not from here are you and part of you says no I’m not and part of you feels fi ercely yes I am
and so you grow up both and neither and belong everywhere and nowhere much the same both stronger and weaker for the lack of ground able to fl y but not to rest and all over the world, though you feel alone are millions like you, like a great fl ock of swallows soaring or falling exhausted, wings beating the rhythm of the wind that laughs at fences or frontiers, whose home is itself, and the whole world it moves over.
