What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
-Langston Hughes
With all respect to Mr. Hughes, now we get to find out what happens when a long deferred dream is realized.
Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none, nor see the eyelids of the morning…
—Job 3:9
How pregnant was the night
that it began to curse?
What words shattered
the holiness that follows birth
while my blood mingled with the earth?
A living witness remains,
yet I cannot reach back
to seize the prophetic chords.
Did they warmly speak “Well done,”
or spit “Depart” and blind the sun?
I think the dark longed in vain
for a misbegotten dawn.
I wish the day had slumbered on and on:
my eyes continued undisturbed,
my first words never heard.
Poetry is hard for me to write.
First I must explore some lost emotion:
once found, identified, and stamped,
I struggle to uncoil its tight twisting.
Like a body steadily breaks down proteins,
I find what drives it, turns it, engulfs it with flames,
then douse the rising passion with cool reason.
I prod the wet ashes with a finger
until an image starts to form—
a bird, a breeze, a bloody field—
then slowly sigh purgation;
my poem is reborn.
Poetry is hard for me to write.
Before my pen begins its loving dance,
a figure arises fully grown in my mind;
I never recognize her at first,
choosing war instead of studying at her side.
Only as she bursts to freedom and I rest in her mercy
do I come to understand:
before I sung her delicate symphony,
my poem was reborn.
Poetry is hard for me to write.
My lover tells me I fill pages in the middle of the night,
but I wake and read poems written in an alien language.
I slave for months to learn the words and hear the verse.
My poem will be born!
All the great men conquer
or burn their love with a harlot’s breath
and sleep forever in the ashes.
All the great women pine
or just beyond the edges of the song
deride the fame their husbands win.
All the great poets laugh
to watch dead heroes dance at their command
or learn restraint when they are past.
Is it an animal sensation that I feel
when your teeth click softly against mine?
or my satisfied gaze begins to pierce
more deeply than a thrusting talon?
Is it relief that in my laughing swells
while viewing from so close your skin?
or an instinct too terrified to scream
foul curses in the middle of our prayer?
Or do you hear my ancient scars crying out:
waiting to be kissed?