Baby Street

This is a poem by Don Blanding from 1928. In spite of a few racial epithets typical of the era, BABY STREET is indeed clairvoyant.

BABY STREET


A real street down Palama way in the tenement district of Honolulu.


I walk quite slowly down Baby Street,
Babies are everywhere . . . under my feet,
Sprawled on the sidewalks, perched on the walls,
Babies in dydies, in blue overalls,
Babies in rompers of flowered cretonne,
Babies with not much of anything on,
Little brown babies in brown mamas' laps,
Philippine babies, Koreans and Japs,
Fresh shiny babies right out of the tub,
Babies in scandalous need of a scrub,
Baby Hawaiians, the sons of a chief,
Rastus from Africa, black past belief,
Babies with yellow hair, babies with brown,
Babies with just a few patches of down,
Toddling babies on little bowed legs,
Very new babies, much balder than eggs,
Portuguese babies and Russians as well,
Babies whose ancestors no one can tell,
Toothless as turkeys, these tiny young tads,
But grinning as though they were dentifrice ads.

Walk very carefully . . . make your step hesitant.
One of these babies someday may be president.




It happened!