For Dad

THROUGH THE DOOR

(Samuel Daniel Sayad, March 30 1913 - July 29 1986)

The lock would snap open
steel against steel.
And with it would come by glorious zeal.
He'd walk up the staircase,
the pace bore his seal.
His overalls covered with paint new and peeled.
To see him, to hold him,
such love I could feel.
I knew I was safe,
my dependence so real.

That magic is gone now,
the door is mere wood.
I'm left to my own,
prayed never I would
Fear has replaced him in my struggle to be.
My strange new companion,
in a world unknown to me.
I fight to find myself in an age ruled by "shoulds,"
to exist a unique person, to be understood.
The battles rage daily, they dictate my life.
They leave me despaired,
my existence is strife.

Yet every so often,
in the quiet dreamy night,
he snaps the lock open,
and I am alright.
But the dream is no match
for the cruel conscious might.
I lay there awakened,
a child filled with fright.

One day it shall come,
my dependence on me.
The struggle shall finish,
the fear cease to be.
The door will then open,
as I remember will glee.
And through it will walk
the person in me.



@ Stephen Samuel Sayad, September 17, 1989
@ The National Library of Poetry, Frost at Midnight (1996)