Left by a streak of sun,
A crimson trickle in the Georgia dusk.
Whose blood?…Everyone’s.
Sometimes a wind in the Georgia dusk
Scatters hate like seed
To sprout their bitter barriers
Where the sunsets bleed.
WHERE? WHEN? WHICH
When the cold comes
With a bitter fragrance
Like rusty iron and mint,
And the wind blows
Sharp as integration
With an edge like apartheid,
And it is winter,
And the cousins of the too-thin suits
Ride on bitless horses
Tethered by something worse than pride,
Which areaway, or bar,
Or station waiting room
Will not say,
Horse and horseman, outside!
With old and not too gentle
Apartheid?
VARI-COLORED SONG
If I had a heart of gold,
As have some folks I know,
I’d up and sell my heart of gold
And head North with the dough.
But I don’t have a heart of gold.
My heart’s not even lead.
It’s made of plain old Georgia clay.
That’s why my heart is red.
I wonder why red clay’s so red
And Georgia skies so blue.
I wonder why it’s yes to me,
But yes, sir, sir, to you.
I wonder why the sky’s so blue
And why the clay’s so red.
Why down South is always down,
And never up instead.
JIM CROW CAR
Get out the lunch-box of your dreams
And bite into the sandwich of your heart,
And ride the Jim Crow car until it screams
And, like an atom bomb, bursts apart.
WARNING
Negroes,
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their mind!
Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!
DAYBREAK IN ALABAMA
When I get to be a composer
I’m gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I’m gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902. After graduation from high school, he spent a year in Mexico with his father, then a year studying at Columbia University. His first poem in a nationally known magazine was “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” which appeared in Crisis in 1921. In 1925, he was awarded the First Prize for Poetry of the magazine Opportunity, the winning poem being “The Weary Blues,” which gave its title to his first book of poems, published in 1926. As a result of his poetry, Mr. Hughes received a scholarship at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he won his B.A. in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt.D. by his alma mater; he has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1935), a Rosenwald Fellowship (1940), and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Grant (1947). From 1926 until his death in 1967, Langston Hughes devoted his time to writing and lecturing. He wrote poetry, short stories, autobiography, song lyrics, essays, humor, and plays. A cross section of his work was published in 1958 as The Langston Hughes Reader.
The author wishes to thank the editors of the following publications which first printed the poems specified:
American Dialog: “Final Call” (1964)
Black Orpheus: “Angola Question Mark” (1959)
Colorado Review: “Where? When? Which?” (Winter 1956–7)
Crisis: “Question and Answer” (1966)
Free Lance: “Without Benefit of Declaration” (1955)
Harper’s Magazine: “Long View: Negro” (1965)
Liberator: “Junior Addict” (1963), “Frederick Douglass” (1966), “Northern Liberal” (1963)
The Nation: “Crowns and Garlands” (1967)
Negro Digest: “Mississippi” (1965), “Dinner Guest: Ma” (1965)
Opportunity: “History” (1934)
Phylon: “Little Song on Housing” (1955), “Vari-Colored Song” (1952)
La Poesie Negro-Americaine (1966): “Bible Belt” under the title “Not for Publication—Defense de Publier”
Voices: “Down Where I Am” (1950)
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