The Door Was Open
Tale of two people… It was the hottest of Mays… Before the hottest of summers…
The last day of school had been sticky-warm,
And we both lived half-a-road away
From the Cowlitz River.
While we slowly walked home together,
The swallows were culling flyers on the wing,
And Bess Beetles scragged loudly in the bull grass.
Numerous insects troubled the fake summer air
As they tizzed-talked just inches from our ears:
We were children; we were friends.
We had opened a door together on the playfield;
And for the last two new weeks
We had loved a word or two between us:
He was open.
I was open.
His house came first, six houses before mine;
He went in to see if we could play on their tree swing.
I heard the screen door clap as he went in through--
I waited on the grass at the bottom of the porch.
I could hear him ask
In the gentle voice I always knew was his:
“Can me and my friend play…”
“No! I don’t want no niggers in here!”
The door was open.
When he came out, he stood five steps above me.
He was shaking and all his bones had shortened,
But he regutted a made-up, kinder reply than had his dad:
Was the door still open….
All the words of our lives now scrambled unfoundedly,
But even more failingly
Both of our marooned faces—which were not ours--
Never moved again.
For a moment I stood a ‘waif in waiting’.…
And when I finally turned away from this human child,
The city became a cavern of shadows
That I did not understand….
I walked home friendless again….
Wondering with tears in my eyes:
Would the door ever be open?
—Dumas fils, 1958
--kinder, German: children
Tale of two people… It was the hottest of Mays… Before the hottest of summers…
The last day of school had been sticky-warm,
And we both lived half-a-road away
From the Cowlitz River.
While we slowly walked home together,
The swallows were culling flyers on the wing,
And Bess Beetles scragged loudly in the bull grass.
Numerous insects troubled the fake summer air
As they tizzed-talked just inches from our ears:
We were children; we were friends.
We had opened a door together on the playfield;
And for the last two new weeks
We had loved a word or two between us:
He was open.
I was open.
His house came first, six houses before mine;
He went in to see if we could play on their tree swing.
I heard the screen door clap as he went in through--
I waited on the grass at the bottom of the porch.
I could hear him ask
In the gentle voice I always knew was his:
“Can me and my friend play…”
“No! I don’t want no niggers in here!”
The door was open.
When he came out, he stood five steps above me.
He was shaking and all his bones had shortened,
But he regutted a made-up, kinder reply than had his dad:
Was the door still open….
All the words of our lives now scrambled unfoundedly,
But even more failingly
Both of our marooned faces—which were not ours--
Never moved again.
For a moment I stood a ‘waif in waiting’.…
And when I finally turned away from this human child,
The city became a cavern of shadows
That I did not understand….
I walked home friendless again….
Wondering with tears in my eyes:
Would the door ever be open?
—Dumas fils, 1958
--kinder, German: children