Classic Poem

I watched them playing there upon the sand:
the little white boy and the little black,
their hands happy as the hands of artists
shaping a castle of their dreams together.
And as each turret grew, each battlement —
exultant cries burst from one throat:
They danced like prospectors striking oil
at the wink of water in the tiny moat.

And then the tide, the hateful tide rolled in.
The boyhood castle crumbled. Innocence fled.
A cloud coiled and struck like a cobra.
The beach was starred with devils and with wrack.
I saw them clutched in murder before my eyes —
the grown-up white man and the grown-up black.