A Life-Saving Poem
November 15, 2008
Long before there were affirmations, there were aphorisms. These quotations are spiritual guideposts, soul-quests.
I swing from one quotation to the next like I used to move on the monkey bars...swinging far, farther than I thought possible, praying I would catch it, landing safely, and still swinging, reaching out for the next.
That's why I love a good quote book. I borrowed my mother's beaten blue Bartlett's Familiar Quotations so constantly when I was a kid, she gave up rights and it became mine. Bartlett's, by the way, was first published in 1855. Nowadays it's easy to go online and google a few apt phrases, but there is nothing like a book to thumb through.
THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO GREAT QUOTES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, assembled by Elaine Bernstein Partnow, opens gracefully to one of the fundamental quotes I wore inside my heart from the time I first read it. I was about eight or nine, and the spark was renewed every time I saw the poem, or even phrases from the poem.
Langston Hughes' poem Dreams first appeared in a book called Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers in 1941.
Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly
Even now my body shudders with tears. A surprise.
Did Langston Hughes know some twenty, thirty years after he wrote that poem for little black girls, that this little white girl would have drowned in pain without its beacon?
Damn, I can't quit crying.
Tears are pouring down my face. Unspent tears that had been stored behind some wall inside that just collapsed. It was useless to cry then -- what could I do to make my violent stepfather happy, I couldn't figure it out. I did everything I could think of. Everything. What could I do to stop my mother from getting so drunk she kept falling and ending up in the hospital, or taking too many pills, or finding sharp knives. What could I do to make them happy? My younger brother and sister, I tried to mother them, but I made mistakes. What good was crying. Crying got you smacked.
But I could dream. Oh God I could Dream!
Did you know that, Langston Hughes, with your poem, that you saved my life, you told me I could dream, and that someday I would fly.
Now my nose is dripping and my eyes are red, and I don't know if it's tears or what licking the edge of my lips.
My cats have come to sit with me. They don't understand these loud noises coming from my chest. These are ancient tears, shed for the little girl who gave all she could and couldn't win, shed for all little boys and girls of every color who don't fit and who try to imagine a tomorrow where smiles will come easy.
Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly
I dreamed -- when I was a little kid -- that if I worked hard in school and read a lot of books, I would learn how to escape the pain...and someday I would live freely and laugh easily, and dance wildly and write passionately...and find that love is kind.
I made it.
Langston Hughes, thank you for your blessed words. You saved my life.
And now I'll go get that tissue.
Long before there were affirmations, there were aphorisms. These quotations are spiritual guideposts, soul-quests.
I swing from one quotation to the next like I used to move on the monkey bars...swinging far, farther than I thought possible, praying I would catch it, landing safely, and still swinging, reaching out for the next.
That's why I love a good quote book. I borrowed my mother's beaten blue Bartlett's Familiar Quotations so constantly when I was a kid, she gave up rights and it became mine. Bartlett's, by the way, was first published in 1855. Nowadays it's easy to go online and google a few apt phrases, but there is nothing like a book to thumb through.
THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO GREAT QUOTES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, assembled by Elaine Bernstein Partnow, opens gracefully to one of the fundamental quotes I wore inside my heart from the time I first read it. I was about eight or nine, and the spark was renewed every time I saw the poem, or even phrases from the poem.
Langston Hughes' poem Dreams first appeared in a book called Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers in 1941.
Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly
Even now my body shudders with tears. A surprise.
Did Langston Hughes know some twenty, thirty years after he wrote that poem for little black girls, that this little white girl would have drowned in pain without its beacon?
Damn, I can't quit crying.
Tears are pouring down my face. Unspent tears that had been stored behind some wall inside that just collapsed. It was useless to cry then -- what could I do to make my violent stepfather happy, I couldn't figure it out. I did everything I could think of. Everything. What could I do to stop my mother from getting so drunk she kept falling and ending up in the hospital, or taking too many pills, or finding sharp knives. What could I do to make them happy? My younger brother and sister, I tried to mother them, but I made mistakes. What good was crying. Crying got you smacked.
But I could dream. Oh God I could Dream!
Did you know that, Langston Hughes, with your poem, that you saved my life, you told me I could dream, and that someday I would fly.
Now my nose is dripping and my eyes are red, and I don't know if it's tears or what licking the edge of my lips.
My cats have come to sit with me. They don't understand these loud noises coming from my chest. These are ancient tears, shed for the little girl who gave all she could and couldn't win, shed for all little boys and girls of every color who don't fit and who try to imagine a tomorrow where smiles will come easy.
Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly
I dreamed -- when I was a little kid -- that if I worked hard in school and read a lot of books, I would learn how to escape the pain...and someday I would live freely and laugh easily, and dance wildly and write passionately...and find that love is kind.
I made it.
Langston Hughes, thank you for your blessed words. You saved my life.
And now I'll go get that tissue.
Labels: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, dreams, Elaine Bernstein Partnow, Golden Slippers, Landston Hughes, THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO GREAT QUOTES FOR ALL OCCASIONS, transcending the trauma
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 10:03 PM
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