Poem for 4-4-2009

[cbtreks]

Going from Vachel Lindsay to Langston Hughes seems like a logical progression (Lindsay considered himself to be Hughes' "discoverer").

***

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

(by Langston Hughes)

***

Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, which I've been through several times. I was there again last Thursday.

Last Thursday I also crossed the Mississippi yet again - maybe I should've made this post be for that day. If I made a list of my favorite things, crossing the Mississippi would be on it. For some reason, that always seems momentous to me. (Except by plane, when no boundaries are momentous.)