Hughes

I came home with a need to read Langston Hughes tonight.  I grabbed my massive Collected Poems and started flipping, slowly savoring, and revisited some of my favorites, wandered over some less familiar territory.  Sometimes I just need Hughes.  I don't know what it is about his voice that speaks to certain moods of mine.  I love McKay, too, and Cullen is wonderful in his way, but when I sit down to read for the joy of the words and the way they flow across the page in beautiful drifts, Hughes is hard to beat. 

His longer poems are wonderful, full of power, but tonight, it's not those weighty works that are calling me.  I'm flipping through and reading the little ones, the brief and shimmering bits.  He was a master of packing much into little, and I think it's nice, sometimes, just to look at those poems and appreciate them.  

I'm going to share a few that caught my eye tonight.  They are in no particular order.  I hope they please you as they did me.

Star Seeker

I have been a seeker
Seeking a flaming star,
And a flame white star
Has burned my hands
Even from afar.

Walking in a dream-dead world
Circled by iron bars,
I sought a singing star's
Wild beauty.
Now behold my scars.

Heaven

Heaven is
The place where
Happiness is
Everywhere.

Little Lyric (Of Great Importance)

I wish the rent
Was heaven sent.

and one last one:

History

The past has been a mint
Of blood and sorrow.
That must not be
True of tomorrow.