January 2026

Unpainted Door by Louise Gluck

Unpainted Door by Louise Gluck

Finally, in middle age,

I was tempted to return to childhood. The house was the same,

but the door was different.

Not red anymore

unpainted wood.

The trees were the same: the oak, the copper beech. But the people all the inhabitants of the past— were gone: lost, dead, moved away.

The children from across the street

old men and women.

The sun was the same,

the lawns parched brown in summer.

But the present was full of strangers.

And in some way it was exactly right,

exactly as I remembered: the house, the street,

the prosperous village—

Not to be reclaimed or re-entered

but to legitimize

silence and distance,

distance of place, of time,

bewildering accuracy of imagination and dream—

I remember my childhood as a long wish to be elsewhere.

This is the house; this must be

the childhood I had in mind.

🤪 This poem was read by Jim Hendrick at A Poetry Gathering in Washington Park.