Lyr Add: As I Grow Older (Langston Hughes)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: As I Grow Older (Langston Hughes)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jan 09 - 03:46 PM

I love the imagery in the last lines, and one could recite those lines with images from the Inauguration, as someone surely will.

Charley Noble

Subject: Add: Children's Rhymes (poem-Langston Hughes)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 03:56 PM

Think about what a wonderful role model President Obama is already for all children, but especially for children of color.

Thank goodness this poem by Langston Hudges is no longer true:

CHILDREN'S RHYMES
(Langston Hughes)

By what sends
the white kids
I ain't sent:
I know I can't
be President.
What don't bug
them white kids
sure bugs me:
We know everybody
ain't free.

Lies written down
for white folks
ain't for us a-tall:
Liberty And Justice--
Huh!--For All?

Langston Hughes

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/children-s-rhymes/

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: As I Grow Older (Langston Hughes)
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 03:50 PM

I love Langston Hughes.

Thanks for posting this poem, Charley.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: As I Grow Older (Langston Hughes)
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 11:58 PM

Thanks for posting this ... very moving. Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: As I Grow Older (Langston Hughes)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 11:14 PM

Going twice!

Subject: Add: As I Grow Older (poem-Langston Hughes)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Jan 09 - 08:42 PM

I posted this poem as "Poem of the Day" for my other primary website Oldpoetry.com in commemoration of Obama's Inauguration. There was some wonderful response there and I'd like to share the poem here:

AS I GREW OLDER
(Langston Hughes)

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun—
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky—
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

Sorry, there's no tune but the words do ring today.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble