Daybreak in Alabama by Langston Hughes

On Martin Luther King's Day, I'd like to share this poem, which I have shared before but which I find so striking not only for its beauty but also for its essence of simplicity. 

If things could only be this way! 

Delta Mississippi © Ana M. Fores Tamayo

And yet, there is no reason why hope cannot let us see that daybreak in Alabama, know that the next few weeks and months can be of grandeur and not of dread, because we will all be working together as one...

Daybreak in Alabama

Langston Hughes

Reaching Out to Heaven
© Ana M. Fores Tamayo

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.

Besos, Not Borders, 

Ana M. Fores Tamayo, Adjunct Justice